


Brothers Three

by KtwoNtwo



Series: 2.5 Holmes' [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers, James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), James Bond - All Media Types, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: AU for S3, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, POV First Person, Post-Reichenbach, Post-Skyfall, Pre-Reichenbach, Pre-Skyfall, Q is a Holmes, Spoilers-Sherlock, Spoilers-Skyfall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-25
Updated: 2013-10-13
Packaged: 2017-12-27 13:37:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/979559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KtwoNtwo/pseuds/KtwoNtwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The lives of three brothers intertwine in a variety of ways. When R suddenly becomes Q due to an explosion at MI6 he is forced to turn to his half-brother for help. But Sherlock Holmes has his own problems to deal with. The confluence of the lives of the three Holmes brothers through the events of Skyfall, the Reichenbach Fall and beyond in the alternating points of view of Q and John Watson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Full of Sound and Fury

It was a Wednesday. No high profile operations in progress just the normal everyday bread and butter information gathering and analysis. Normal life at MI6 HQ was 85% boredom and 15% terror. The order had come down from the Director several weeks ago to keep everything low-key and in the 99% boredom range for a while. I suspected that this state of affairs would be the status quo at least until the Director could assess how much trouble we were in with the Intelligence and Security Committee due to the recent debacle in Istanbul. What a bloody cock up that had been. Two high-profile assets lost as well as the mental stability of a damn good field agent. Not that I blamed the field agent. Being directly ordered to take a risky shot like that and ending up shooting one of our own was bound to mess with your head. Hopefully the boys and girls in Psyc could straighten her out. Note to self: look at the upgrades in progress for sniper scopes. There ought to be something we can do to help with the long range accuracy.

For once I was sitting in my official office on the 10th floor rather than my usual desk down in the R&D design bullpen. I was attempting to catch up on the mundane paperwork required to keep the Q branch running and, more importantly, with funds to buy the stuff we used to build the toys for the agents. As second in command that task was part of my job description. As my half-brother Sherlock would say B-o-r-ing.  Of course I wouldn't be a hacker worth my salt or a member of my family for that matter if I wasn't multitasking at the same time. Reviewing and approving requisition forms while watching the main server information flow in a small window and running a minor hack into New Scotland Yard's database just for fun made the paperwork somewhat tolerable.

 Interesting. There was a sudden uptick in the incoming server traffic. It jumped again. I opened several new windows to see what was going on. A bunch of random information packets not related to anything coming in from multiple sources? Looks like an orchestrated denial of service attack. Ah. There was Shirley. She'd caught it too and was deflecting most of the attack while attempting to trace the packets back to origin. She had snagged a couple and routed them to George. He would be dissecting them to see if there was a virus payload or other nasty surprises. It looked like the two of them had it under control. I was just about to go back to my paperwork when suddenly we had an unauthorized spider in the system. Now where did that little bastard come from? M's computer? What? She wasn't even in the building. She should be in the car on the way back from her meeting with Mallory. She was accessing e-mail remotely and…Shit, Shit, Shit!

"Q!" I activated the micro radio transceiver set that my boss Q and I were beta testing this week. "We've got a breach from M's desktop. I'm blocking it from the server core but it would help if you could pull the plug for me." As my boss and department head he was one floor up and closer to the Director's office than I was.

"On my way R," was his reply.

I love my boss. Q is primarily an engineer and a tinkerer. Cars with ejection seats, exploding pens and the like were his pride and joy. The techy toys that all the agents, especially the 00's, love. But he also realizes the value of computers, good information and hacking which is more my specialty. In short, when he says cover your ears I do so without hesitation. When I say pull the plug he defers to my judgment.

I cut M's machine off from the rest of the network, killed the spider and headed out the door to the lift. My day was looking up. Nothing like a security breach to get out of doing paperwork.

The indicator showed that lift was on 12. Should I wait or run up the stairs? As I turned to head for the stairwell the world exploded. The blast wave blew the lift doors open and knocked me back. My brain went into overdrive. Sound then shockwave down the lift shaft. Time differential meant it was on the west end of the building. Angle of the blast wave down the shaft and the sway of the building logically indicates…the pain when my shoulder hit the corner of the wall was incredible. Sight went grey to black.

Judging from the condition of the lift lobby when I could see again I'd only been out for 30 seconds at most. I struggled to my feet with difficulty. A quick self-assessment: Right shoulder - dislocated; ribs - several cracked or bruised; miscellaneous cuts and minor burns from hot shrapnel; major headache. All in all not bad. I could still function. Tucking my thumb into the top of my trousers to stabilize the shoulder I staggered for the stairs. I knew what needed to be done next but damn it all to hell…this is NOT the way I wanted to get a promotion.

Trotting down the stairs to the R&D floor was not the most pleasant experience. Every step jarred the dislocated shoulder and the alarms were not helping the headache. I ignored the pain as best I could. About half way down the stairs the irony caught up to me. If what I suspected was true I'd end up being the first Quartermaster in MI6 history whose real name actually started with Q.

 As I limped into the R&D bullpen I could see that the quick release hard drives had been removed from most of the computers and everyone was busily placing the most sensitive material into either lock boxes or in some cases pockets and handbags. Shirley spotted me first.

"R" she yelled a concerned look on her face, "Where's Q?"

This had the effect of making everyone still in the room at least glance in my direction. I didn't shrug. That would hurt too much in my present condition but apparently something must have shown in my face because several people winced and looked away. Duty to Queen and Country takes many forms some requiring more sacrifice than others. This part was easy for me given the sociopathic tendencies that run rampant in my family. I squelched any emotional response to make sure the orders were clear and the job was done correctly.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," I said loudly enough to be heard over the blaring alarms, "As you have correctly surmised we are implementing protocol 47. Move as quickly as possible and I'll see you in 10 hours or so."  To their credit the staff had continued working while I spoke and most of them were now hurrying to the stairwell exit.

Shirley handed me two hard drives. "Your desk and Q's" she said choking a bit on the last word. She took a deep breath to get ahold of herself then looked me up and down.  "Dislocated?" she asked looking pointedly at my shoulder. "You'll never get through the medical cordon in that shape."

"Can't be helped I'm afraid."

She just grinned at me and before I could react she grabbed me by the arm and shoulder and wrenched. For the second time today things went grey. This time, however, I managed to stay on my feet.

"There!" she said sounding for a moment as if she were a long way off. "Come along now." She maneuvered me toward the stairwell. "We're the last of the lot."

I gingerly moved my right arm. It felt like it was back in the socket. At least I could move it now. Then I remembered. Shirley had been fire brigade before being tapped into MI6 for her hacking on the side. She snagged a trench coat on the way out the fire door and handed it to me.

"Thanks."

*******

Getting through the cordon of emergency personnel wasn't as tricky as I had anticipated. I managed to get the trench coat on before Shirley and I exited the building. That made it easier since my scorched clothing was not as visible. Shirley wasn't carrying any data or tech so she quite sensibly gave me some cover by having hysterics all over the first set of policemen we encountered. It was quite a production. The last I saw as I slipped away was her throwing herself at a salt-and-pepper haired DI on the edge of the group. He, despite the fact that he hadn't been paying much attention to her histrionics, managed to catch her as she _fainted_. I had to stifle a smile. He was the best looking of the lot. Fit. Separated or recently divorced judging by what I could see. Good luck Shirley. Play your cards right and you might just be able to hole up at his place for the next few hours.

An upright demeanor, a steady stride and a few outright lies, _Yes, I'm heading right over there to that ambulance to get checked out thank you_ , and I was clear of the cordon. A quick look around and I located the nearest CCTV camera. It was a static camera, focused on the next intersection. That would do. I walked to the intersection and crossed the street making sure I turned my head so that my face would be clear in the feed. When one's place of work is bombed it is always prudent to reassure the family that you are alive. That task complete I slipped into an alley.

My mobile vibrated in my pocket, stopped then vibrated again. I pulled it out and glanced at it. Ah, good. Texts were starting to come in from various members of Q-branch letting me know they were clear of the building and going to ground. Unfortunately, I didn't have the luxury of completely dropping off the grid. I needed to get to somewhere with decent internet access so I could check on the main servers. If the power had been cut then things were good. The emergency protocols would have been tripped and no-one but Q, Tanner, M or I would be able to get into them when they came back on line. If not, then I'd need to take the sensitive information off line and put up my _decoy_ information along with a nice set of tricks and traps for any unwary hacker that attempted to take advantage of the chaos.

Now where could I go? If this was an inside job, and it must have been to get the explosives into the building, then it was highly possible that my residence as well as my fallback were compromised. A public computer would do in a pinch but a private one would be better. Hmm. My half-brother's flat mate was a blogger. He'd have a decent internet connection and most likely a good computer. If he didn't have one to begin with my half-brother would have bugged him into getting decent one just so he could nick it and use it.

His flat wasn't all that far. Well within walking distance. Mindful of the CCTV cameras I started working my way in the general direction of Regent's Park.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cross posted from fanfiction.net with minor changes. First attempt at posting here. Its unbeta'd and not brit-picked so please excuse any blatent Americanisms. Chapter title derived from Macbeth Act V, Scene 5.


	2. The Case of the Purloined Laptop

I awoke when the train started to slow as it entered the suburbs around London. Sherlock Holmes was sitting across, his feet on the seat next to mine, eyes closed apparently asleep. I knew better. He was awake, alert and somewhat on edge. That was a bit unusual for him after finishing a case. Usually he would run around for a half day or so with a satisfied air about him, most often with a smirk on his face, before collapsing for ten to twelve hours. Both the satisfaction and the smirk were missing. It is constantly amazing to me that I can read his body language so accurately. No one else seems to be able to do so.

"Back with me John?" he asked softly, opening his eyes to look at me.

Huh? I must not be quite awake yet. I'd never heard that tone of voice, much less the sentiment that appeared to be behind it, before from Sherlock. Some of my confusion must have shown on my face because he smiled at me and relaxed a bit. I recognized the motion from my army days. It was the type of shift that a man makes when he's been on watch for a while and then been relieved. He stretched then and squirmed a bit in his seat. Sherlock had been watching for danger while I slept? Why?

Voice still soft he commented, "Something is amiss in London John. I don't know exactly what just yet but something big has happened. The mobile network has been shut down to the bare minimum and they are slowing the incoming trains."

Just then a conductor entered the car and walked down the train aisle looking from side to side. Most likely for someone's lost bag or mobile.

"Ah," Sherlock said as the conductor exited to the next car, "It will be a terrorist attack of some sort then."

I didn't doubt it. Sherlock's deductions, no matter how inelegantly expressed, were quite accurate. He'd explain the chain of reasoning if I asked but I was still feeling somewhat muzzy headed. Nothing like a couple of doses of experimental hallucinogenic gas along with a sleepless night to make one feel a tad bit off. I wondered idly how long until we arrived at Paddington Station.

"25 minutes at this speed," Sherlock murmured.

Some days I'm sure that Sherlock's ability to deduce things from the minutest of clues is as close to reading minds as anyone is likely to get. It was uncanny when he did it to total strangers but it seemed to get even better the more contact someone had with him. These days he occasionally deduced my thoughts almost before I could completely think them. Why he bothered deducing my mundane cogitations I'd never know. In fact, given his intellect I often wonder what it is that I do that makes him put up with me.

Sherlock snorted. "I've told you before John you have the innate capacity to stimulate genius."

"Stop it Sherlock! It's rude to broadcast other people's thoughts aloud to all and sundry."

"If you wouldn't brood so obviously I wouldn't have to."

"Brood?"

"Not the proper word?" Sherlock sat upright and cocked his head at me. "You prefer mope? Worry? Fret? Agonize?"

"Sherlock."

He half smiled at my exasperated growl of his name. Humph. He was baiting me. Trying to get me annoyed as an alternative to the mood I was quickly working myself into. Well, I wasn't going to rise to that. Instead I would think about how to write up the recent case for the blog. What to call it? Dartmoor something-or-other? Murder in Baskerville? Case of the Glow in the Dark Rabbit? H.O.U.N.D Program? No, none of those was quite right. I ought to be able to do something with that acronym though. Hound, dog, ah…Hound of the Baskervilles…that would work.

********

Paddington was a three ring circus as usual. We exited the station and were unlucky. There were no cabs in the taxi queue.

"Walk?" Sherlock asked.

He was still on edge for some reason. I nodded my agreement. Maybe the walk would settle him down into the usual post-case routine instead of this crazy oscillation between semi-civilized and expecting something. Could this be a side effect of the gas?

We set off briskly in the direction of Baker Street. Several blocks down he stopped his attention arrested by the news feed visible on the telly through the window of a convenience store. It was running a loop of a building, the top of which had apparently exploded earlier this afternoon.

"That," he said pointing at the video a tone of disgust in his voice, "is direct evidence of a distinct lack of imagination! It looks like a special effect from an American action movie. Properly placed that amount of explosive could have brought the whole building down."

Hm. I watched the next replay which had been filmed from a different angle. It actually looked like a shape charge to me. Meant to blow the contents and the walls of the top floor out then drop the roof in on top of what was left. Assassination rather than full scale destruction I would think.

"Oh." Sherlock replied looking at me curiously.

Had I said that last aloud? Judging from the way he was looking, with all his considerable intellect focused on me, I had.

He shook his head slightly. "When we get back to the flat we are going to pull up that video feed and you are going to walk me through how you made that particular deduction," he said. He turned and was off again at a faster pace than before.

We made it to Baker Street more quickly than we would have if we had caught a cab. Traffic was seriously a mess presumably due to the explosion. I noticed that quite a few more people than normal were walking so I surmised that the tube was also partially shut down. We entered the hall, Sherlock still in the lead. Mrs. Hudson seemed to be out since I couldn't hear her telly which she kept on at a low level whenever she was home. She said it gave her the feeling of company even when no-one was around.

Sherlock bounded up the stairs but paused suddenly three quarters of the way. His body language went from _mild anticipation_ to _ready for violent action_ between one step and the next. It was so sudden that I made a grab for my Sig Sauer, forgetting that I had placed it in my bag for the trip back. I started to say something but he held up his hand. A moment later he started up the steps again and pushed open the door to our flat which I now could see had been slightly ajar.

He paused on the threshold for a moment then relaxed. With a mild humph he strode into the room saying "Quentin" in an annoyed tone of voice.

A slightly raspy tenor voice acknowledged "Sherlock" as I entered.

A young man was sprawled in Sherlock's chair. He had a mop of unruly dark brown hair, rather thick rimmed glasses and was dressed in khaki pants, a button down shirt and rumpled pullover that clearly had seen better days judging from the holes. In front of him on our coffee table was a variety of computer parts, various cords and what looked to be the remnants of the toaster. The whole mess appeared to be plugged into…"My laptop!"

The young man sat up with a slight wince, focused on me and cocked his head slightly in a movement that I was familiar with. His eyes were green-gray rather than blue-grey and the shape of his face was somewhat different but I knew then that this young man was somehow related to Sherlock.

"Not going to introduce me?" he asked Sherlock with a sidelong glance, ignoring my outburst.

Sherlock merely looked sour.

"Oh well," he mock sighed, "I guess it's up to me to perform the social niceties as usual." He stood up then gingerly extended his hand to me and started "I'm…"

But that was as far as he got when the color drained out of his face and he went down like a stone.

From my considerable experience I know just how hard it is to catch someone who faints even when you are standing right next to them. Somehow Sherlock managed to not only catch the young man but also to sweep him up and place him on the sofa all in one smooth movement. By the time I had made it from the door to the divan Sherlock had cleared out of the way so I could work.

The young man, Quentin, was out cold. He was sweating, his breathing was shallow and I could see he had a faint bruise on the side of his face where something had glanced off him. I gave him a quick once over and determined the major problem was a partially dislocated shoulder. The jumper that he was wearing wasn't ratty as I had supposed. No, it smelled of smoke and had been the recipient of hot small pieces of metal, plastic and other things. In short, he looked like he'd been in an explosion. Judging from the amount of damage to his person and his clothes, most likely the very one we had watched on the way home. Given the shoulder I took a quick feel along the back of his head. Uh, huh. Just as I suspected. He had a substantial knot  where he'd hit his head on whatever had dislocated his shoulder.

Sherlock had moved around to the back of the sofa. I glanced up at him as I continued my examination. I could tell that Sherlock was trying hard not to appear concerned. I took a chance with a direct question, "So how are you two related?"

"Half brother," Sherlock said curtly. "Mummy took him in after his biological mother died."

That was interesting. In one sentence I had at least tripled my knowledge about Sherlock's family.

"Well?" He said as I finished and looked up at him again.

"Dislocated shoulder which was not properly set, three bruised ribs, numerous abrasions, some minor burns and a concussion."

Sherlock looked annoyed. "I missed the concussion," he grumbled. Then he gave one of his half smiles, "But you missed the fact that he's had four hours of sleep in the last 48."

"Six" said my patient faintly.

I looked back to Quentin who blinked somewhat owlishly at me. His pupils were the same size and appeared to be reacting properly to light.

He started to shrug then stopped as he remembered that it was going to be painful to do so. "I was coding."

As if that explained anything. I gave him my best doctor look and voice, "You, my friend, should be in a hospital."

"No," said both Sherlock and Quentin with Quentin being half a beat behind.

"Why not? They are much better equipped to deal with your injuries than I am here. That doesn't even take into account the fact that getting your shoulder properly back in place is going to hurt like the devil."

"The mere fact of his presence here John," said Sherlock in his most pedantic explanatory tone, "indicates that the hospital not an option in the current situation."

At the same time Quentin grated out "Drugs, Dr. Watson, drugs."

I looked at Quentin. It was clear that he was in a lot of pain.

"I can't afford to be medicated." He paused for a moment then continued, "I need to be reasonably sober in less than eight hours."

I recognized the tone of voice. It was the same one Sherlock used when he wasn't going to listen to me on a medical issue. Pfft. I didn't realize that type of stubbornness was hereditary.

"John?" Sherlock spoke using that strange tone he'd used in the rail car again. I understood. He was asking for my help without directly asking for it. Some days I didn't think he is capable of asking for help directly. Never the less it was clear from his tone, he was requesting that I'd fix his little brother.

I sighed. When Sherlock bothered to ask me to do something it usually ended up being important, at times it turned out to be dangerous however if he bothered to ask I had learned that complying was ultimately worth it. "I can realign the shoulder and wrap your ribs," I told Quentin. "I can't do much for the concussion except monitor it to see if it gets worse."

"Shoulder first," was all he said in reply.

It was rather sobering. He trusted me without question merely because Sherlock trusted me. I moved around to get the proper leverage to pop the shoulder back into its socket.

"Quentin." Sherlock was now leaning on the back of the sofa. "Pi to the hundredth place in hexadecimal."

That got a snort from Quentin followed by, "How many times do I have to tell you Fibonacci sequences work better."

"Very well," replied Sherlock.

That exchange had the sound of a ritual. I glanced at Sherlock who had a little half smile on his face. I then looked back to my patient and was surprised to see on his face the somewhat vacant expression that I associated with Sherlock when he was accessing his memory palace. I waited a moment then pulled. The shoulder realigned itself with an audible pop. Much to my surprise Quentin only grunted.

After a moment his eyes refocused on me and he said, "Thanks."

*******

I woke up again when my mobile buzzed. Time to check on Quentin. Since I didn't have access to all the wonders of modern medicine I'd taken to monitoring his concussion the old fashioned way, waking him up every two hours or so to see if he'd deteriorated. That meant I'd spent the night sleeping in my chair. Sherlock, once Quentin's shoulder was back in place and his ribs were taped up, had left abruptly only saying "Don't wait up" as he closed the door behind him.

I stretched and rolled my neck a bit to work the kinks out before opening my eyes only to discover Quentin wasn't on the sofa. Glancing around I realized that the blanket he'd been under was neatly folded. The only thing left on the coffee table was my mobile, a mug of tea and a note.

I picked up the mug. It was still quite warm. He hadn't been gone long then. Hmmm. Earl Grey. I'd not had that in a while. I marveled at the fact that Quentin had found the tea tin in and amongst all the experiments and chemicals that resided in the kitchen. It was also interesting that he'd managed to make tea, clean up the table, and exit without waking me up. There are very few people in the world who can do that. Sherlock is one of them. Apparently my subconscious had filed Quentin into the same category.

I picked up the note. In a spidery hand he had written:

_Thank you for your care and hospitality. I'm sorry I had to nick your laptop. I promise I'll return it shortly. I owe you one. Q_

Yep. He was definitely related to Sherlock, right down to the propensity to purloin my property without asking. My mobile buzzed again. I picked it up there were two recent texts.

 _Tell him to answer his phone it's important MH_ read the first.

The second most current message read: _Where is he? MH_

I figured I'd better respond. If I didn't I was sure Mycroft Holmes would send his PA, Not-Anthea, to fetch me so he could attempt to intimidate me in person. Sherlock's older brother was like that when he was trying to protect his younger sibling. I don't suppose he'd be any less protective of Quentin than Sherlock.

Thinking about the events of the previous day I decided I just couldn't resist getting a bit of my own back. It was rare that I ever had one up on either Sherlock or Mycroft and I intended to take advantage of it. I texted: _Please be more specific.  One just left, the other isn't back yet. JW_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cross posted with minor modifications (a word here, a comma there) from Fanfiction.net. I assumed that Sherlock & John went to Dartmoor on the train then hired the land rover when they arrived. Watson's pistol is a Sig Sauer P226R per the website Sherlockology. He owns it illegally. He uses it on the dog at the end of the Hound of the Baskervilles. John tends to concealed carry only when he thinks he'll need it so I assumed he stashed it in his bag for the trip back to London. Not brit-picked so please excuse any blatent Americanisms.


	3. Nothing We Can Call Our Own But Death

It had been a grueling 72 hours but Q branch was shaping up nicely due to the heroic efforts of the survivors and an ample supply of caffeine and sugar. M had looked at me a little strangely when my first request upon being formally named head of the branch was for coffee, tea, energy drinks, chocolate and a variety of sugary junk food. I know my people. Provide them with their stimulants of choice and they will work like fiends, collapse for three to four hours then get up and do it all over again. My biggest challenge as a manager was attempting to schedule the collapses so that not all of us were out of commission at any one time.

I looked around our new digs. The old World War II bunkers had been effectively transformed. One end was a sophisticated communications suite while the other housed the R&D labs. The hackers were in the middle and the servers were next door. Bullet resistant glass, security doors and electronic security measures were still in progress but all in all the Q branch of MI6 was once again pretty much in business.

MI6 as a whole had only lost eight people when the top floor had blown, the old Q among them. Their names would be added to the wall honoring all those who had died in the line of duty. It hadn't surprised me that one of the first things that had been moved from the old building had been the wall. It hadn't been an official move either. Just agents and staff carrying a name plate back in addition to whatever they had been tasked to get. I'd even seen M carrying in a plaque or two herself although I pretended not to notice. The corridor leading to the executive section was now adorned with most of the names. I suspected the rest would arrive and be placed in a day or two well before the new names were added.

Q branch had its own memorial for our fallen. It was housed in an old steamer trunk that sat in a corner. It contained a piece of tech or gear that the departed had been instrumental in developing. There had been a big discussion about what to put in for the old Q. We finally decided on one of his exploding pens because, as Shirley remarked, the Aston Martin wouldn't fit. I wonder where that car ended up anyway. Like the wall, the trunk had been one of the first things salvaged. Most of the rest of MI6 considered it strange but the members of Q branch had a tendency to touch, sit on or root around in the memorial when under great stress. We had all, myself included, spent some time with the trunk over the last three days.

I was working with Eve Moneypenny when I caught movement in the corridor out of the corner of my eye. Eve had just been assigned to assist the MP chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, Gareth Mallory, who had decided that MI6 needed a bit more hands on oversight. Since her new role was PA cum bodyguard I had decided that one of the smaller palm lock firearms would be appropriate. It was technically a low level staffer's task to program the gun but most everyone who could actually do it was currently either off site or sacked out in a storage room that we'd converted into an impromptu dorm. I took a quick look up and was just in time to see Tanner striding down the corridor followed by…good God, was that Bond? But he was officially dead! M had disposed of all his effects. There was even a plaque on the bloody wall.

Eve caught my movement and looked too. She made a sound that was a cross between a squeak and the sound made when someone punches you in the gut. Oh yes I remembered, she was the one who shot Bond outside of Istanbul. Must be a bit of a shock to have someone come back from the dead on you. I turned to her. Her eyes were wide and she looked a bit green.

"How the hell am I going to face him?" she muttered half to herself.

"Does he know who shot him?" I countered.

She focused on me. "Oh yes," she murmured softly and then seemed to rally continuing in a more normal tone, "I guess I'd better say something at an appropriate time then."

When, I wondered, would be an appropriate time to tell someone that you are sorry you killed them? I didn't know what to say so I went back to fiddling around with Eve's equipment. Once I had ensured that it was properly programed I sent her off to the range to practice.

********

A day and a half after I'd first seen Bond in the hall M herself came into Q branch. I was out on the floor helping George with a bit of gear he had in development. With a jerk of her head she indicated that I should follow. Not pausing she strode straight into my office, a glassed in affair off the main room that didn't even have a door yet.

"I'm reinstating 007 tomorrow and sending him to Shanghai," she said without preamble.

I kept my face straight. I'd suspected as much when I saw the results from the bullet fragment analysis. The bullet casings were depleted uranium. There are only two or three operatives worldwide that use that type of ammunition. It was sort of a calling card for them. A personalized touch saying _this kill was one of mine_. One of those who did was known only as Patrice. We'd flagged him as potentially the operative who had escaped Bond in Istanbul. After that fiasco and the explosion we'd tracked Patrice as best we could under the circumstances. Thanks to the cousins we knew his next job was in Shanghai.

Given those facts I'd taken the precaution of hacking into Bond's records. The most recent battery of tests was an unmitigated disaster. His marksmanship was atrocious, physically he was a mess and psychologically he was worse. Looking at the internal surveillance tapes I could clearly see his balance was off. His distinctive prowl like walk now had a slight limp. The only thing that had any upside at all, and I doubted that anyone else would have noticed it, was that his marksmanship improved the more annoyed he became.

"I want you to outfit him with a standard kit," she continued. "Let me know how you want to run the handoff. I don't really care where you do it as long as it's not here."

That was interesting. M didn't want Bond running around in-house with a weapon but she didn't want him obtaining his own when he reached Shanghai. She must be going for plausible deniability with Mallory if the whole thing went tits up then. That in turn meant that this particular conversation may not have ever happened. I'd need to check the common area surveillance footage and wipe any entry logs to remove traces of M's visit. Government internal politics. I'll never understand how Mycroft stands the sheer pettiness of it. Code at least doesn't play power games or try to cut your funding.

"National Gallery." I'd used it before when I had been R and I knew just the room. "I'll bring up the recognition phrases shortly." I needed to see if they had moved the painting since the last time I'd used that room.

M made a sound that I took as approval. She turned to go and then turned back. "I'm thinking of sending Moneypenny as part of the backup team."

She was asking me for my assessment. Interesting. The bombing must have shaken her up more than I had thought. She would have never asked anyone else's opinion of a personnel assignment before. Remembering how fast Eve had recovered from first seeing Bond I replied, "She's stable. She'll do fine."

M nodded then walked out of Q branch just as quickly as she had entered.

Time to get busy. I needed to pack up and send Dr. Watson's laptop back to him. In the three days I'd had it I'd added an extra firewall, upgraded virus protection, and installed an interesting little routing routine that would bounce e-mails labeled "private" all over everywhere before finally delivering them to their destination. I'd also put in a satellite uplink as well as a backdoor. If the computer was on I'd be able to access it. Everything, of course, was hidden down in the base code of the operating system for safety's sake. I didn't think the good Doctor would notice any of the upgrades I made even if I'd left them out in the open, but Sherlock certainly would.

********

Several hours later I walked into the National Gallery. The contact was to occur on a bench in room 34 directly in front of Turner's The "Fighting Temeraire" Tugged to Her Last Berth to be Broken Up. This particular bench was situated so that not only did it have a good view of a painting but also you could see at least two convex mirrors. The mirrors gave decent view of anyone approaching. Two minutes past the appointed time I entered. 007 was in place. His tradecraft was still good. He spotted me immediately and quickly dismissed me as harmless. I wandered over and sat down on the bench next to him. He didn't acknowledge me. My open then.

"It always makes me feel a bit melancholy. Grand old war ship. being ignominiously hauled away to scrap.. The inevitability of time, don't you think? What do you see?"

"A bloody big ship. Excuse me."

His demeanor said he thought I was a civilian. Well time to disabuse him of that particular notion. "007. I'm your new Quartermaster."

He half turned to look at me but the only part of him that reacted in surprise was his eyes. They widened slightly. "You must be joking."

Oh dear. I had so hoped that he wouldn't go there. I took a page from Sherlock's skill set and deduced that he was going to question my competence shortly. Hmph. Better to get it over with quickly. "Why, because I'm not wearing a lab coat?"

"Because you still have spots."

Well at least that was original. "My complexion is hardly relevant."

"Your competence is," came the quick reply.

There it was. From his tone he was wary as opposed to completely dismissive. I could work with that. "Age is no guarantee of efficiency."

"And youth is no guarantee of innovation."

Nice return. I was beginning to enjoy myself. "Well, I'll hazard I can do more damage on my laptop sitting in my pajamas before my first cup of Earl Grey than you can do in a year in the field." Let's see what you do with that Mr. Bond.

"Oh, so why do you need me?" He actually seemed amused.

"Every now and then a trigger has to be pulled."

"Or not pulled. It's hard to know which in your pajamas."

Point Bond. There was no real response to that. He was right.

"Q," he nodded slightly at me.

"007," I responded and extended my hand. We shook. I gave him the documents, the Walther, the radio and admonished him about bringing the gear back in one piece. Not that I had much hope. 00's were notoriously hard on equipment. As I left I heard him grumble something about a brave new world. If he survives I think I'm going to have a very good time working with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Skyfall M tells Bond that the reason he's getting his equipment off site is that Q is "not set up yet". I made the assumption for the purposes of this fiction that she was lying. Reference to "the cousins" is to the CIA. Chapter title derived from Richard III, Act III, Scene 2.
> 
> Thanks to MorganRose for a typo catch!


	4. The Curious Actions of Three Brothers

I was heading back to 221b from the surgery after a busy day when I spotted one of the ubiquitous black cars that Mycroft Holmes favored for kidnapping people parked next to the curb a half-block in front of me. Standing beside it was Ms. Not-Anthea typing on her blackberry. As I approached she looked up, saw me and smiled. She really was quite lovely and but for the fact that she worked for Mycroft I might have considered chatting her up.

"Dr. Watson," she said. "Can I offer you a lift?"

"Do I have a choice Anthea?"

"It's Alice," she replied then added, "Not really," and opened the car door.

Sighing I entered the car and scooted over. Mycroft apparently wanted a word in person. I wondered about the subject matter. It could be about Sherlock again or more likely something about his half-brother Quentin. He could even be upset about the cheeky text I sent him three days ago. Anthea, no Alice, slipped in and closed the door.

I couldn't resist the question, "How often do you change your name?"

"About every two weeks or so," she replied and tapped on the glass to signal the driver to go. "It keeps me in practice."

The car pulled away from the curb and into traffic. Surprisingly Alice did not go back to her blackberry as she had every other time she'd escorted me somewhere in a car. Instead she studied me intently.

I took the opportunity to get a good look right back. Living with Sherlock had increased my powers of observation and to some extent deduction. While I was nowhere near as good as he was I still could attempt to learn something about my curvaceous repeat kidnapper. She was about my height if you discounted the heels, at least partially ambidextrous given the way she handled the car doors and was either a dancer or a martial artist by the way she moved. She was also armed. I had caught a flash of a bit of what looked like a sheath on her thigh when she entered the car and there was a small budge under her jacket. Likely a shoulder holster for a small firearm. The bit with the blackberry was obviously meant to camouflage her true potential. Not only Mycroft's PA then but also bodyguard?

She caught my assessment and smiled again at me. I knew, she knew, she knew I knew, that I had…oh what was the bloody use. I was just too tired to really play these games.

"So what does the great Mycroft Holmes want this time?" I grumbled at her.

She chuckled, "Nothing really. I'm just running an errand as a favor and I decided the most expeditious way to complete it was to give you a lift."

_What? Errand? Favor?_

 "The Quartermaster sends this with his regards." She reached under the seat and pulled out a laptop bag. She extended it in my direction, "He apologizes that he didn't return it sooner but the last few days have been rather hectic for him."

My brain jogged back into gear. Quartermaster, that sounds familiar for some reason. Laptop, borrowed, oh Quentin. I opened my mouth to confirm but Alice raised her index finger at me in a stop gesture. "Call him Q if you must use a name," she said, "Security."

The car pulled to a stop and I realized that we were in front of 221 Baker Street. Alice hopped out and held the door open for me. Slightly dazed by both the information and the location I exited the car holding the laptop bag. Alice said "Ta Dr. Watson" as she smiled, got back into the car and was gone.

Great, another meddling Holmes to add to the mix. There were days I could barely cope with keeping up with the first one. I wondered what had I done that karma had saddled me with care and feeding of a self-professed sociopathic genius with an addictive personality and a manipulative brother. Well now I guess it was manipulative brothers, plural. Not wanting to think much about the implications of the answer to that question I entered the flat.

Surprisingly I found Sherlock sitting in his chair fingers steeped in front of his face. He'd been in and out at all hours over the last several days commencing the night Quentin, no I'd better start thinking of him as Q, had crashed on the couch. He'd been working in information gathering mode ever since. I didn't really mind that he'd not confided whatever case he was working on just yet. I knew he would eventually and in the meantime gathering the pieces of the puzzle kept him from taking my Sig and shooting up Mrs. Hudson's walls again.

He didn't have that abstracted I'm accessing my memory palace look so I assumed he was thinking. I dropped the laptop case on the coffee table headed into the kitchen for tea. As I waited for the water to boil I could hear Sherlock start to mutter a bit. By the time I had made my tea he was storming about the sitting room in a full blown rant about lack of relevant data. I dodged around his pacing, put my tea down and started looking at my laptop. Might as well see if I could figure out what Q had done to it.

"So are you going to pace around or sit down and tell me about it?" I asked while I waited for the laptop to boot up.

Sherlock stopped pacing then slammed his thin form down into his chair. "I've been tracking the bombers. You were correct, they were professionals. Used a plastic explosive. There's something off about the explosion. It wasn't big enough for the estimated size of the charge. Still working on that." He paused for a moment. "I know who, but they've not been seen for several days. My people are looking. They are contractors though, not the mastermind." He paused again, longer this time. "If I knew what was used then I'd know who was behind it, though I already have my suspicions. I doubt he's the principal in this but it has Moriarty's consulting style all over it for those who know where to look."

I typed in my password.

Sherlock suddenly focused on what I was doing. "Quentin returned your laptop," he stated. Then without giving me time to reply, "So what did my dear brother Mycroft want?"

I just looked at him, waiting for the inevitable deduction.

"Not Mycroft. Quentin using Mycroft's people to return your laptop," he stated his conclusion as fact.

I figured that he'd either seen the car or caught a whiff of perfume when I'd opened the laptop bag. "She's Alice this fortnight," I replied conversationally. "He's calling himself Q now."

"Hmm. Promoted then," Sherlock muttered. "Security and such not. As if anyone with half a brain couldn't figure it out. Cloak and dagger games…b-o-r-ing," he continued half to himself.

It suddenly dawned on me where I'd last heard the terms Q and Quartermaster in the tone and context that Alice had used it. It had been during my time in Afghanistan. For some reason or another my unit had often been assigned to work with the intelligence corps. The MI6 agents would occasionally mention that the Q, short for Quartermaster, would kill them himself if they didn't return the more expensive equipment in one piece. Most of the agents had been carrying highly experimental gear. Some bits of it worked as advertised. Others didn't. I was always amazed that the failures, well at least the visible failures, were not catastrophic. Hmm. I wonder. "Have you checked if anyone is missing any defective R&D explosives yet?"

Sherlock sat bolt upright in his chair. "Defective…Missing," he echoed. "It wouldn't be counted as missing if it was labeled defective and destroyed! What if it wasn't…destroyed? John you have done it again," he exclaimed. "Toss me your phone."

********

I didn't have a shift scheduled and wasn't on reserve call so I took the rare opportunity to sleep in. Sherlock, Lestrade and I had spent most of the previous evening going over the list of companies authorized to destroy explosives and discussion who would do which part of the legwork on each. Lestrade had showed up at the flat with a list almost exactly one hour after Sherlock's text to Mycroft. He had looked bemused and the first words out of his mouth had been, "I knew your brother was in government but I didn't realize he had ties in the intelligence community Sherlock."

"I told you he IS the ruddy government," Sherlock had smirked in reply. The two of them then launched into what I mentally labeled the _obligatory sniping_ and I went to get a cup of tea. I had been a bit surprised that the insults had calmed down by the time I returned and in relatively short order we got down to business. I sat with my laptop and ran searches for public information on companies, people and occasionally locations while they talked over each item on the list. Really it was more Sherlock talked, Lestrade interjected and a plan of investigation took shape.

I had found it interesting that NSY was officially the lead on the bombing rather than MI5 or 6 and had asked Lestrade about it. "Officially we were the first on scene and we were designated lead with the other branches being used in the area of their greatest expertise," had been his reply. "It's a bloody zoo," he'd continued. The taskforce has taken over the entire 5th floor. Every time you move you trip over some expert, liaison or spook all wanting to know exactly what you have found new since the last time they asked you." His exasperated tone explained his willingness to put up with Sherlock for the time it took to develop a list of leads to investigate.

Sherlock hadn't been in the flat when I got up and started puttering around. He was obviously out gathering the information that he and Lestrade had determined that only he could get. I checked my mobile and there were no messages. Lestrade's part of the searches must not have turned up anything.

I hauled out the laptop again and started working on my blog. Whatever Q had done to it wasn't blatantly obvious. It was a given that he'd done something. Most likely a bunch of somethings. He was, after all, a Holmes and leaving well enough alone was just not in the genetic material.

I had managed to get about halfway through a rough draft of the events in Baskerville when I heard the front door slam. Sherlock only slams open the front door when he's hot on the trail. I hit the save followed by the power button and by the time he'd burst into the room with a "Ha!" I was already on my feet and headed for my jacket.

I'd grabbed it and half put it on when I realized Sherlock was standing just inside the door with a surprised look on his face. He obviously didn't realize that his behavior while on a case was in certain ways predictable and that I'd managed to pick up on it. While I was shrugging myself the rest of the way into my jacket I wondered if he thought I'd need my Sig.

"Yes, bring it," he said shortly. "We are off to catch the supplier of the explosives!"

"Shouldn't we call Lestrade?"

"No," Sherlock snapped. "He'd just arrest him immediately. I want to watch for a bit. The man hasn't been completely paid for his part of the proceedings. He's expecting the money shortly and I hope we'll be able to catch his paymaster as well." Sherlock whirled and started down the stairs again. "Come on John," he called happily from the vicinity of the front door. "Once more unto the breach!"

"Cry God for Harry, England and St. George!" I called back as I grabbed the gun and pounded down the stairs after him.

********

Several hours later I found myself huddled with Sherlock under the eaves of a warehouse. We'd been following our quarry most of the afternoon and into the evening. Our man had been relatively skilled and but for Sherlock deducing his next movements we would have either lost him or been spotted. As it was he'd finally gone to an abandoned warehouse in a rundown industrial area. The warehouse looked as if part of it had been repurposed as an outlet shop that had subsequently gone out of business. There was a big display window that had been inexpertly boarded up with what looked like cheap plywood next to a door with a lock on it. Our quarry hadn't bothered with the front door but instead had slipped into the alley and was currently fiddling with a lock on one of the side doors.

"This is it." Sherlock said in a low voice. "By the time Lestrade gets here we should have this wrapped up for him."

I fished my mobile out of my jacket pocket and hit speed dial. I never had expected when I ended up as a flat share with Sherlock that it would result in my having an NSY DI on speed dial.

"Lestrade." Since there wasn't a pejorative term or other grumble after the clipped answer I assumed that he out and about in a public place. He'd told me last week that _the powers that be_ were getting very touchy about _public perception_. Thus the word from on high was no swearing or even being impolite when there was a chance that the public could overhear.

"Sherlock has tracked the supplier of the explosives to a warehouse. He suggests that you hurry if you want to catch the gentleman's paymaster too." I then rattled off the address.

There was a pause before he replied, "I'm close. Five minutes out or so. Can you keep him from doing anything stupid for that long?"

I was just about to reply when there was the unmistakable sound of a gunshot. Sherlock took off down the alley at a dead run. "No," I said into the phone as I rang off and followed Sherlock.

Sherlock darted in the side door as I charged down the alley. I followed into what was obviously a back room to the former outlet store. There was a chained door into the rest of the warehouse and a door that presumably went into the shop floor area. It was partly open and there was a light source in the next room. Sherlock was standing beside the door frame. He glanced in my direction and put his finger to his lips indicating silence. I carefully made my way across the room to join him.

Through the partially open door I could see that the next room was indeed the former retail area. I could also see another partially open door in the wall that had a light spilling out. There was the powder discharge smell from the gunshot we had heard earlier.

Sherlock slipped through the door, clearly intending to move toward the light. He only got half way when he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. "Damn" he said disgustedly. "Stupid git set off a booby trap."

I entered the room and looked where his attention was focused. There was the body of our explosives supplier dead on the floor with a shot through his head. There was a box on the floor with a hole in its lid. Sherlock walked over to the body and started to examine it and the box closely.

I looked around by the light of the open door which I could now see led into an office cubby. It was clear what had happened. Our quarry had come in, turned on the office light and then attempted to open the box triggering the trap.

Sherlock's relaxed pose told me that no one else was in the building but I was running on adrenalin and combat reflexes. Something wasn't quite right. I looked around to see if I could spot what was bothering me.

The shop area once had a dropped ceiling. Only about half the ceiling tiles remained and I could see the beams of the floor above through the gaps. A small flash of red light up near the ceiling caught my eye. I moved to see if I could locate it. As I watched there was another flash which revealed a shoebox sized package up on one of the beams. Another flash, shorter interval now and I saw another shoebox on another beam. It hit me.  Shape charges.  The building was set to explode and I was seeing the red flash of some sort of countdown timer.

I caught the flash again. It had moved to second increments which meant that there wasn't much time left. Sherlock was straightening up from examining the body. "Sherlock" I yelled as I charged at him. I caught him around the middle and threw us toward the boarded up display window. I hoped to hell that the plywood was as flimsy as it had looked from the outside.

We crashed through the boards and went tumbling into the street. I rolled to my feet pulling Sherlock along with me and started running for a concrete loading dock that we could shelter behind. We were almost there when the building exploded behind us. The blast wave knocked us down with enough force to stun. Through the ringing in my ears I could faintly hear people yelling. Hands grabbed me, hauled me upright and half carried me down the street.

When I became a bit more aware I realized that someone was between Sherlock and I supporting both of us as we were hustled out of harm’s way. From the voice spouting a rather creative stream of expletives I determined it was Lestrade.

Once we had made it around the corner, he rather unceremoniously dropped us. He then straightened and yelled a few orders before looking back in our direction. "It couldn't have hurt you to wait would it?" he started.

Sherlock cut him off by handing him a wallet and a square jewel case for a CD-Rom. "If we had," he remarked mildly "these would be destroyed in the explosion as the bombing mastermind intended."

Lestrade took them with a sour look. "You two sit right there till I have time to get a statement from you," was all he said as he turned back to the crime scene.

I was surprised. It only took two hours to get checked out by the medical boys and have our statements taken. For some reason Sherlock actually cooperated for once. Well, he didn't actually obstruct things and he did keep the deductions of people's personal lives to the minimum. He even deigned to answer Lestrade's questions without his usual snide comments. I suspected he was up to something.

Even with NSY being efficient it was almost midnight when we got back to the flat. As we walked in the door I just had to ask, "So why the cooperation?"

He looked at me with what I had mentally labeled his _cat that ate the canary_  expression and replied, "Our explosives expert also had this on him." He held up a newish looking thumb drive. "I think my brother might be interested in this, don't you?"

"Which brother?"

"Both of them of course but I'll give it to Quentin. He's much less annoying than Mycroft."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Once more into the breach…Cry God for Harry, England & St. George" from Henry V, Act III, Scene 1.


	5. The Valiant Never Taste of Death but Once

It has been my experience that 00's have an aura about them that they can turn on and off at will. It seems to engender extremes in other people. Extreme attraction, extreme nervousness, extreme awareness, extreme violence. When 007 stalked into Q branch with the full force of his personality on display my staff exhibited all those extremes with the exception of the last one. I, having the dubious pleasure of spending most of my formative years with not one but two manipulative geniuses, ignored him. I was busy with Silva's laptop.

He moved up behind me into my personal space and cleared his throat. I continued to ignore him. After a few minutes of attempted intimidation he finally started asking me questions about the laptop. I decided to monolog rather than answer directly.

"Now, looking at Silva's computer, it seems to me, he's done a number of slightly unusual things. He's established fail-safe protocols to wipe the memory if there's any attempt to access certain files. Only about six people in the world could program safe-guards like that." What I didn't say was that I didn't think Silva was one of them.

"Of course there are. Can you get past them?" was Bond's reply.

Well at least he'd stopped questioning my youth. Now he doubted my competence. Wonderful. "I invented them. Right then." I started plugging the laptop into a segregated area of the system and commenced hacking past its security. "Let's see what you've got for us, Mr. Silva." I typed for a moment then continued, "We're in."

One of my minions spoke up. "Sir what do you make of this?" I'd been running a synchronized display on the large wall monitor so everyone in the area could see what I was doing for just this reason.

"This is omega site. Best encrypted level he has. Looks like obfuscated code to conceal its true purpose. Security through obscurity." Tricky bastard.

That couldn't be all there was. The previous attack had been much more sophisticated. I continued hacking away at the code and shuttling out bits and pieces to my people to see if anyone else could get a handle on it. Ah there it was, the secondary layer I'd known had to be there. Now that was more like the previous attack. Interesting structure. It was very similar to the coding on the thumb drive Sherlock had sent me. Code structure at this level was almost as individual as a fingerprint and tended to evolve rather than change radically over time. What was strange in this case was that I'd dug up some of Silva's early work and I couldn't really understand how he'd developed this style. This was more similar to what Silva had used to trigger the explosion than to his original coding work. It was almost as if…Oh, I'm an idiot! He was working with a third party.  I was so deep in the code analysis that for a moment I forgot Bond was there until he shifted his weight leaning slightly into my personal space again. I restarted my monologue.

"He's using a polymorphic engine to maintain the code. Whenever I try to gain access, it changes. It's like solving a Rubik's cube that's fighting back."

I felt Bond tense. "Stop. Go in on that," his voice was low. "Granborough. Granborough Road. It's an old tube station on the Metropolitan line, been closed for years. Use that as the key."

I plugged the name in as the algorithm base. Suddenly the shifting obscurity stopped and the underlying data started decrypting. "Oh look it's a map!" I couldn't help myself. The setup had been so clever.

Of course 007 identified it in a glance. "It's London. Subterranean London."

I happened to look over at my security monitoring display. Then I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. The security doors had unlocked themselves and popped open. What?!

"What's going on? Why are the doors open?" No sooner had I said that then Bond was out the door at a dead run and I had System Security Breach flashing on every monitor.

"Oh, no! Can someone tell me how the hell he got into our system?" I asked somewhat rhetorically aloud as every last one of us hackers was on a terminal typing furiously trying to contain the infection and protect the secure data.

I shut down the interconnects between servers and took the databanks off line. Thank heavens we hadn't migrated much from the backup servers yet. My screen shifted to read Not Such A Clever Boy under a stylized red skull. "Oh shit!" He'd calculated that I'd link directly into the server trusting to my firewall and segregation protocols and then he trusted his code to blow through them. I yanked the cables out of the laptop. "Shit, shit, shit! He hacked us."

I finished segregating the virus keeping up a litany of profanity in at least three languages as I worked. Once that was done I paused and bumped my head lightly against the monitor. Hubris. Of the seven it always was my sin. I straightened up. My crew was looking to me for guidance. I took a deep breath. "Ok people, let's identify the scope of the damage and figure out how to stop it from happening again."

"Oh, no!" That was Bond's voice. It was coming in from one of the micro-radios that we were starting to issue to all the field agents. I hadn't even seen Bond grab one from the box on the desk.

"Q, he's gone."

I switched that particular transceiver into mission mode so I had more control and better tracking capacity.

"I'm on a stairwell below isolation. Do you read me Q?"

Oh…I hadn't acknowledged that the transceiver was working. "I can hear you. I'm looking for you. Got you. Tracking your location. Just keep moving forward. Enter the next service door on your right. If you're through that door, you should be in the tube."

"I'm in the tube," was his reply.

I switched over to the now isolated laptop and looked as some of the decrypted information. "Bond, this isn't an escape; this was years in the planning. He wanted us to capture him; he wanted us to access his computer. It was all planned. Blowing up HQ, all the emergency protocols, knowing we'd retrieve it down here."

"I got all that. It's what he's got planned next that worries me"

I switched back to the main computer and brought up the underground maintenance map. "District line is the closest. There should be a service door on your left."

"Got it. It won't open."

"Of course it will." There had been a crew through it just last week. "Put your back into it."

"Why don't you come down and put your back into it?" He grunted, "No, it's stuck. Oh, good. There's a train coming."

Sarcasm thy name is Bond. "Hmm. That's vexing." Two could play at the sarcasm game. I heard a shot.

"I'm through."

Typical 00 behavior. If it gets in your way, shoot it. "Told you! We've alerted security, police are on their way."

I left the line open. I wanted to hear what Bond was up to. In the mean time I delegated two of my programmers to make sure the communication system was clear from surveillance and any other results of the hack. When I refocused I found I'd lost track of Bond.

"Where are you now?"

"Temple tube station, along with half of London."

I brought up the CCTV feeds for the tube station. It took me a moment to locate him. "Oh, I see. Here you are."

"I know where I am, Q. Where is he?"

"Just a second, I'm looking for him." I signed for Shirley to help me look for Silva on the CCTV cameras. She took up the task smoothly.

"There's too many people, I can't see him." Bond was sounding frustrated.

"Welcome to rush hour on the tube. Not something you'd know much about." Damn, still couldn't find the bastard. Where was he? I indicated that George should join the hunt.

"Train's leaving. Do I get on the train?"

"Don't get on the train unless he's on it. Give us a minute."

"Do I get on the train?" I was glad that I wasn't within arm's reach. Bond sounded like he wanted to strangle someone.

Oh! Got him! "Bond?"

"What?"

"Get on the train."

The next few minutes were interesting. I couldn't tell exactly what was going on but apparently Bond had managed to get on the train. When his breathing calmed down I decided to confirm.

"Where are you?"

"Take a wild guess, Q."

Well so much for getting confirmation for the mission record. I took a look at the still I'd lifted of Silva from the CCTV camera. "He's in disguise now. He's dressed as a policeman."

"Of course he is."

Smart ass. I followed Bond's movement through the train and the train's movement through the system. "Where is he going? Where is he going?" I muttered over the open line.

Bond inhaled sharply, "He's going for M. Tell Tanner, get her out of there."

********

We had the servers mostly scrubbed when Tanner came into Q branch at a trot.

"He took her," he said without preamble.

It wasn't too much of a stretch to determine that Tanner was referring to the fact that Bond had run off with M after the attack on the parlementary hearing. He had turned off the ear piece so I didn't have a way to track him. I just had to hope that one or the other of them would deign to call in. I had left the ear piece frequency slaved to mine just in case. A small beep sounded in my ear. Think of the devil and he decides to call in. I put him on speaker so Tanner could hear.  It was a simple request. Not quite so simple to execute.

"I guess this is not official" I asked him to confirm.

"Not even remotely," was Bond's reply.

I was resigned, "So much for my promising career in espionage." Bond cut the line. Luckily Tanner and I had been the only ones in the communications room at the time.

This would be tricky. I needed to leave a bit of the hack active so Silva could find the trail we left. I didn't want to do anything that would jeopardize the main servers again. I set up a link to one of my shadow servers. It was designed to echo part of the communications rig that Silva would be watching. Now for the really hard bit, playing the person rather than the machine.

"It's a fine line. If the breadcrumb's too small then he might miss it. Too big and Silva will smell a rat." I was hoping that Tanner would have a better idea than I did about the size of the nature of the trail.

"Yes, but you'd think even Silva would be able to spot that," Tanner grumbled.

"He's the only one who could."

Tanner half turned and started, "Sir!"

I glanced back. "Oh." Crap. Mallory.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

Uhh. What to say? "We're just…monitoring."

Mallory gave us an oh really look. "Creating a false tracking signal for Silva to follow."

Shit. He had us cold.

"Well, sir, um..." Tanner made an attempt to salvage the situation but ran out of inspiration.

My turn to try. "Well, no…" but Mallory cut me off.

"Excellent thinking, get him isolated. Send him on the A9, it's a direct route, you can monitor his progress more accurately and confirm it with the traffic cameras." His tone was more order than suggestion.

I had to ask, "But, uh…what if the PM finds out?"

"Then we are all buggered," was his heartening reply. "Carry on," he said as he exited the communications room.

Tanner and I stared at each other for a moment then got back to work. Mallory's message was clear. We were all going to hang together rather than separately.

********

I was running on 20 hours awake with only minor cat-naps when Bond turned on his earpiece again. I had switched over to satellite upload for the signal just in case he ended up somewhere really remote. It was a good thing I had because near as I could tell he had arrived at Skyfall in Scotland. That was his family estate. A bit of godforsaken marsh out in the middle of nowhere. A couple of small villages within a few miles but no reliable mobile phone service or radio repeaters within relay distance. As it was the signal cut in and out. Most likely he was moving in and out of buildings blocking the satellite signal.

Judging from the snippets of conversation I heard M was still with him as was someone else. It was someone Bond knew. Most likely the caretaker. Kincaid. I found his name in a database. They had fortified and booby trapped the place in preparation for Silva's eventual arrival. I suspected that Bond had turned on the earpiece so we'd have at least a partial record in case they didn't survive and we would be left to deal with Silva by ourselves. Considerate of him.

It dawned on me several minutes later that it was also a message to me. 007 not only trusted that I had laid the trail correctly but also that I was awake, alert, and competent enough to figure out a way to get a signal from the earpiece in such a remote area. Nice to know I was appreciated.

I was currently alone in the communications room. As soon as we had the trail laid and we knew that Silva had taken the bait Tanner had left for Glasgow to head up the extraction and clean up team. I had already scrambled the component parts and requisitioned enough fire power for a small war. If Silva escaped Bond he'd have a hard time escaping the backup team. It wouldn't be quiet and Mallory, Tanner and I would most likely take the fall for it but if necessary we'd get the bastard on the way out the door.

The next few hours were nerve racking. Hurry up and wait. Eve Moneypenny came in and joined me about an hour or so on. She was unofficially there as Mallory's eyes and ears. His last vestige of deniability if things went pear shaped. I locked us in and put the audio on speaker. I was glad of her presence.

Suddenly it was all action. Shots, explosions, running, and sounds of fighting. The sound of a machine pistol on full automatic followed by a splash. Had Bond gone into the lake? Good thing I'd made the earpiece waterproof. I had muted the mike on my end. Since I had no data to contribute I didn't want any distracting sounds coming over the earpiece to Bond.

Finally everything went quiet save for Bond's breathing. It sounded from the interference as if he was in a building. Oh. The family chapel. Eve and I listened to Silva's faint rant asking M to put them both out of their misery. A thump, a gasp then a pause. Bond's voice, "Last rat standing."

Now that was a non-sequitur. I was tempted to ask for a report but I refrained in case it wasn't over yet. The only thing over the com was Bond's breathing. Finally M's voice, "007 what took you so long?"

"Oh, I got into some deep water," he replied.

Talk about understatement.

A muffled sound of pain that wasn't Bond, movement, something knocked over, a thump. M's voice again closer to Bond but hesitant and in pain, "I suppose it's…too late to make a run for it."

"Well, I'm game if you are," was Bond's soft reply.

"I did get one thing right," M's voice was barely audible.

A moment later there was a sound. A strangled sound forcing its way out of a suddenly too tight throat. The sound of a man who doesn't know how to grieve, how to cry, dealing with the death of someone he loved. I'd heard it before. Mycroft had made it when he found our father just before he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

I shifted communications to Tanner's frequency. "M's dead," I said without preamble. "Go collect Bond and clean up." I cut the connection before he could say anything in response.

It had been a while, years, since I had wanted to cram myself in a small space and shut out the rest of the world. Thus, I was unprepared when that old half-forgotten urge hit me full force.  When I was a child and the emotions became too much to bear I would cram myself into the nearest smallest space I could reasonably fit in until one or the other of my brothers would come and talk me out. Unsurprisingly it was usually Sherlock who found me and gave me the will to face the world again. Sometimes he could even talk me out of hiding in the first place. Sherlock wasn't here and there was no small space to hide in communications so I did the next best thing, I crumpled to the floor ending up sitting with my head on my knees and my arms around my head.

I slowly became aware of additional arms around me. Eve. She was crying when I couldn't and rocking me gently back and forth. I don't know how long it was before I unfolded and wrapped my arms around her in turn. We sat there for an indeterminate time like children lost and abandoned until Malloy's voice came over the interoffice frequency and demanded to know what the hell was going on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title derived from Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene 2. Thank heavens for IMDB and its quotes section without which I would have wasted quite a bit of time transcribing.


	6. The Tragedy at Addleton and the Surprising Events Thereafter

A little over a week after our impromptu defenestration out of the old warehouse Sherlock and I found ourselves in the Scottish highlands in the picturesque village of Addleton. It sat on the edge of a huge bog. The bog itself was home to several estates originally belonging to minor Scottish nobility but long since passed into other hands. They had quaint official names such as Fennview, High Heather and Skyfall but in the tradition of small towns everything had a secondary reference used only by the locals.

We'd been called up to this benighted spot on the edge of the map, as Sherlock had dubbed it, by one Leroy Gibbson former NSY DI and now the head of the county police force who's jurisdiction included Addleton. He'd worked with Sherlock before and was, in Sherlock's opinion, _not a complete idiot._ High praise indeed coming from Sherlock.

The case involved an archeological dig that had unearthed three not so ancient bodies. Even though Gibbson had E-mailed the complete unedited case file, including a large number of digital pictures and a rather detailed map, Sherlock had insisted that he needed to go and look at the dig himself. That had meant a trip to Glasgow, the hire of a car, and two days of driving around on back roads with Sherlock suddenly yelling stop here!

The newest body had been in the ground for only two or three years. Sherlock deduced that it wasn't the husband of the victim but rather her lover, one of the secondary archeologists on the dig, who had murdered her in a fit of rage after she told him she was not going to get a divorce. This murder was actually the third for this archeologist, all in similar circumstances, and he had dumped the bodies in the barrow secure in the fact that there were tons of more significant archeological sites which surely would be excavated first. What he hadn't counted on was a bequest to the local university that required immediate use of part of the funds for a local archeological dig. If the university didn't use the funds they would lose the remainder of the bequest which was quite substantial. Of course the administrators looked for the easiest and cheapest site, to heck with archeological significance, and the barrow at Addleton was chosen.

  
The evening Sherlock solved the case we were sitting in the police station in Addleton tying up the loose ends when the sound of an explosion echoed through the building. It was enough to rattle the windows so everyone piled out onto the street to see what had happened. Once we were outside it was clear that whatever had exploded was somewhere across the bog. The mist was heavy but one could faintly see the flickering of fire in the distance. There was a small crowd gathered all staring in that direction as if their collective will could remove the obscuring mist. As we were watching another explosion echoed across the moor. This one sounded bigger to my ears than the last. There was more fire and it was clear that it was not dying down as quickly this time either.

The bits and pieces of speculation that I overheard among the onlookers were not terribly enlightening. Old Bond place, over by the lake, natural gas tank, helicopter. I, however, was more interested in eves dropping on Gibbson. He had his mobile out and was apparently checking in with his main office.

"Yes. Skyfall? No. A cordon? I only have four men here. No. No. I can cover the main paths but nothing more." He rang off and approached Sherlock and I. "I'm sorry gentlemen," he said. "I have to deal with this. If I have any questions I'll E-mail." He turned away and started for the station then hesitated and turned back. "Dr. Watson, if you happen to do a write up on this one could you please let me know when you post it." At that moment his mobile rang. He answered, "Gibbson. Yes. Yes sir." There was a pause then, "Appreciate the help sir." He waved at us, clearly in dismissal as he strode purposefully into the station still listening to the person on the other end of the phone.

  
I looked at Sherlock. "Not interesting," was his only comment.

I shrugged in reply and we made our way back to the pub which doubled as a B&B where we had a room.

********

I'd just spent the last two hours getting Sherlock to explain his deductions on the case to me and taking notes. Despite all his grumblings he seemed to enjoy the debrief process. We had come to an agreement that he'd allow me to ask questions after a case. In return, I'd not bother him for additional details until I had the blog entry almost ready to post. Through trial and error I'd discovered that the closer we were to the close of the case the better information I would get so I now attempted to ask my questions as soon as possible.

Since I had run out of questions for the moment I stood up and went to the window. Our second floor room faced the bog and the area where the explosion had been. As I looked out I noted that I couldn't see any more flames through the mist.

"They got the fire under control," I commented.

"I would expect so," Sherlock replied from his reclined position on one of the beds. "A military operation would clearly be able to requisition adequate firefighting capacity even in this remote area. Even more likely," he continued, "they brought it with them."

"Military?"

"No sirens, Helicopters, Gibson's body language and tone of voice when saying Sir all indicate military involvement."

I was about to ask a follow up question when something caught my eye in the car park. It was a person casually approaching our hired car. Uh oh. "Looks like someone is going to try and nick the car," I commented. "I'm going to go discourage them." I headed for the stairs.

By the time I had exited the building and was peering around the corner, the would-be car thief was just finishing up opening the driver's side door. There was something familiar about the way the thief moved that triggered a strong sense of deja vu. The thief looked around and I got a clear look at his face. I almost laughed out loud.

Sherlock had come up behind me. Unwilling, I supposed, to stay in the room when something interesting might be going on. I looked at him and whispered "Stay put. I've got this." I trusted that he'd quickly deuce the reason for my actions and refrain from doing something monumentally stupid that might get me killed.

I strolled around the corner and addressed the thief directly, "You know you are in no fit condition to steal a car, much less drive one."

The would-be-car-thief casually opened the car door, straightened and looked at me, "Are you going to try and stop me…again?"

His voice was gravely and full of pain. As I moved closer I could see he was rather banged up. He'd clearly been in a serious fight. He tensed and I realized he was very close to violence. I stopped moving. "How bad?" I asked.

He looked at me and came to a decision. "Better than the last time. I'm in no danger of passing out," was the level reply.

I couldn't help it, I snorted a half laugh. "I don't recall that being much of an impediment for you. Where do you need to go?"

"Glasgow."

"I have a companion with me," I replied. "He's trustworthy."

"The Detective?" he asked to my surprise. It must have shown on my face. He made a derisive noise, "I do get a chance now and then to read your blog," he explained.

I took a glance at the corner. Sherlock was not in sight but I hadn't expected it. "Yes." I replied. I moved around the car and approached cautiously. He was not only banged up but also both singed and damp. He was leaning heavily on the car but trying not to be obvious about it.

"The commotion earlier your handiwork James?"

He nodded shortly then stiffened as we both heard the sound of a door shutting softly. Sherlock stalked around the building with my laptop case in one hand and a blanket draped over the other arm.

He looked at James and said "Backseat" as if it were a forgone conclusion. He then proceeded to toss the blanket into the back, placed the laptop and himself in the passenger seat asking "Are you two going to just stand there?" as he closed the car door.

Once again James looked me over. He nodded to himself and decided to trust my statement about Sherlock because he opened the back door and stiffly got into the car. I got in, started it up and we were very shortly headed for Glasgow.

I was a bit concerned about the drive. What in heaven's name was I doing taking a several hour road trip in the middle of the night with one of the world's most dangerous men in the back seat and one of its most brilliant in the passenger seat. That didn't even consider the fact that the brilliant one had absolutely no social skills in regards to sharing his deductions and the dangerous one was highly stressed, injured and just a hair’s breath from reacting violently to any situation he perceived as threatening.

Sherlock shifted in his seat as if in preparation to start talking but he must have caught a glimpse of my face and deduced the danger because he merely sighed then sat back.

I glanced in the review mirror. James was wedged between the seat and the door with the blanket partially covering him. His eyes were closed, his body appeared relaxed but I doubted that he was either relaxed or asleep. His position and posture reminded me of the first time I had met him. He'd been on his last legs then, conserving energy for one final fight.

********

We had been on patrol when the call came in. My unit was the closest one with the clearance to assist one of the MI6 operatives whose cover had been blown while infiltrating the operations of a Taliban allied war lord. The operative had managed to get to a village near our forward operating base but communication had been lost just as we were moving out. In less than a minute our mission had suddenly changed from recover and provide protection to forcibly extract if necessary.

What we found when we got to the village was a scene of incredible carnage. It looked as if the few men of the village had been rounded up and shot. We found the women and children in the courtyard of the mosque, brutalized and shot. We spread out carefully from there and quickly started finding other bodies. These men looked as if they belonged to the local war lord. They had been killed in ones and twos. Most with a knife but some had been strangled and a few had broken necks. By the time I got to the largest house in the village I was expecting the worst.

There were two bodies outside, shot, and three more were visible as I peeked in the door. There was also a man who was dressed in native garb but clearly Caucasian. He was injured but still alive sitting propped up in a corner. He had a bloody knife in one hand and a pistol balanced on one knee. He looked half passed out but some instinct told me that one wrong move and I and my cohorts would be as dead as the Taliban fighters on the floor.

I had been lucky it was Private Jones standing next to me. He had often acted as my corpsman and had seen enough to obey my instructions without question regardless of what strange thing I did. I moved into the line of sight of the exhausted, presumably injured, man and proceeded to hand Jones all my weapons as well as most of my gear. I then entered the room. I moved closer until the slight tensing told me he was getting ready to move. I sat down cross legged and started talking. I don't remember what exactly I said but I finally ended up on the subject of tea. After I had waxed eloquent for a minute or so he fully opened his eyes and said "Actually I'd prefer Scotch" and that was how I had met Mr. James Bond.

He'd been an absolutely atrocious patient. Even drugged to the gills, suffering from blood loss and delirious he'd attempted to escape by knocking out several guards and hot wiring one of the FOB's land rovers. Apparently his delirious mind was equating the base with his captivity. Since he was due to be extracted the next day I had decided that the best way to deal with the situation was to let him capture me and make me drive him to Kabul at gun point. Luckily he passed out before we got half-way and when he woke up he was more copacetic. We had a rather interesting conversation during the rest of the trip and I had been able to deliver him in at least stable condition to his MI6 handlers.

I'd run into him several times since. The most memorable had been when he arrived as a patient in Baghlan with a variety of knife wounds that had been precisely placed for maximum pain. I had been a bit surprised that he had requested me specifically and refused treatment from anyone else. When he passed out while I was suturing up the worst of it I understood. Given what I knew of his profession I was flattered by the trust. The last time I had seen him had been just before I'd ended up in the flat share with Sherlock. We'd met for a beer and had been catching up when his mobile rang. He'd had to run out on me… _duty and all that_ had been all he'd said at the time.

********

I was thankful that Sherlock had stayed quiet for most of the drive. It was only when we reached the outskirts of Glasgow that he even moved. I had though he was asleep and thus was a little surprised that he dug out the laptop and powered it up.

"We've got wireless signal," he commented.

"What are you doing?"

"Data," he said shortly and started typing.

I glanced in the rearview mirror again. James had shifted a bit. He still had his eyes closed but he was tenser than he had been previously. Damn. "Why?" I asked Sherlock.

"I want to know if I need to text Mycroft and I won't know that until I can determine exactly how much trouble we are going to be in for absconding with a high level MI6 agent, probably one of the 00's, who has gone off the reservation due to the death of someone close to him. Even if you do happen to know him from Afghanistan, you two haven't really had a chance to talk since you were medically discharged and he's been through a lot since then including the fact that the last three weeks or so have been incredibly stressful most likely due to his recent sojourn in Indonesia." Sherlock continued hardly taking a breath as he continued to type, "Which of course explains why he's attempting to decide whether or not to snap my neck."

"Sherlock, shut up!" I said in chorus with a tinny voice coming from my laptop speaker.

"Hello Quentin," Sherlock said to the computer. "Are you going to convince your colleague that he shouldn't terminate me for deducing his profession?"

"You are annoying enough that I ought not to." Quentin sounded both tired and exasperated. "By the way it was Shanghai Sherlock."

"It's always something," Sherlock replied disgustedly.

"What's the damage 007?" Quentin changed focus to our passenger, "other than the fact that you've managed to at least half short out your micro transmitter."

James raised his voice a bit but otherwise didn't move or open his eyes, "I'll live."

Oh great. He was pulling the stoic agent bit. Don't let anyone know how badly you are hurt while you are in the field even if it's your own side. I decided I'd better put in my opinion. "He's as bad off as you were several weeks ago minus the concussion but I suspect the ribs are broken. I won't be able to tell you much more until I can get a look at him in some decent light."

"Thank you Dr. Watson" said Quentin.

James made a noise that sounded somewhat like a growl. Sherlock chuckled softly then said, "I suggest you not argue 007. Watson in full on medical mode is not someone to mess with."

There was an "I concur" from Quentin and a resigned "I know" from James.

I hadn't thought I was that unreasonable when dealing with patients who ignored sound medical advice.

"I assume you don't want to deal with anyone from the home office right now?" Quentin continued. "I can arrange a safe house in Glasgow and keep everyone off your back for at least 24 hours if you want."

"Who's officially in charge?" James asked.

"Mallory" said Quentin.

"Logical," Sherlock chimed in "Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee he'd be the optimum…" He stopped suddenly in mid-sentence.

I looked over at him. He looked stunned and rather upset. Not a normal Sherlock expression. I looked back at James who had shifted around and was now looking over Sherlock's shoulder at the laptop. Was Quentin on Skype or some high tech equivalent? No, probably not I concluded. Too little bandwidth to support a picture. Whatever James saw on the screen seemed to confirm to him that it really was Q and he sat back glancing at Sherlock then giving me a questioning look. I shrugged and flipped him a hand sign for later. It was fast becoming obvious that he and I needed to compare notes on the Homes brothers and their peculiarities.

After a substantial pause Quentin finally said, "Pass the computer to 007 if you would Sherlock and I'll give him the details of where you three can hole up for a bit."

Sherlock, for once, did exactly as his brother requested.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title derived from a Holmes case that was mentioned in passing in The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez ("also I find an account of the Addleton tragedy and the singular contents of the ancient British barrow"). Bonus internet points if you can guess why Sherlock is so upset. Even more bonus points if you can identify the shout out to another fandom.


	7. Brother Mine that Entertain'd Ambition

It was exactly one month to the day after the events at Skyfall when Moneypenny summoned me to Mallory's office in the late afternoon. I still was having a hard time thinking of Mallory as M. Technically the title went with the job so I supposed that I'd get used to it eventually.

Bond had wandered back into HQ some 65 hours after he'd disappeared from Skyfall. The betting pool about his time of return had ranged from as early as 24 to as late as three weeks. Fred from accounting had won with a lucky guess. Since I had inside information I refrained from participating. I'd also heard rumors that certain members of the Medical branch were somewhat put out that they'd not had a chance to patch him up after he'd finally made it down for a physical. There were at least two nurses and one doctor that were just dying to get their hands on 007 more than just superficially. They were mightily disappointed. Dr. Watson does good work. Bond had been systematically working on getting himself recertified for field duty ever since.

Over the last month I'd been up to my ears riding herd on 006's operations in Brazil. Drug dealers and money laundering meant that my team was getting quite adept at hacking into various banks and other financial institutions. On the down side the location also meant that there was limited CCTV coverage and the floor plans of many of the compounds and buildings 006 needed to get into were not digitized. Thus a lot of time and processing power was spent fiddling with satellite imagery to get something usable. I had to admit Bond's initial observation about fieldwork was correct. There were times when there was no good substitute for on-site human intelligence.

When I reached M's outer office Moneypenny indicated silently that M was not alone. She had a concerned look on her face so I wondered just who we'd managed to annoy and how well connected they were. She hit the intercom and said, "He's here sir," as she buzzed me in.

I was shocked to see Mycroft rise from one of M's visitor chairs as I entered. M was already standing. He nodded at Mycroft and left us in sole possession of his office, shutting the door behind him. That plus Mycroft's demeanor told me that whatever-it-was was not good news.

Mycroft started to speak but I held up my hand to stop him. I reached over M's desk and flipped the switch engaging the ECM and ensuring that the room was secure from both internal and external oversight. The fact that Mycroft had forgotten this precaution was troubling. There was only one person who could upset him to the point he'd forget security precautions. "What's wrong with Sherlock?" I asked.

Sherlock had been playing a cat and mouse game with the consulting criminal James Moriarty for years. The game had heated up considerably after Moriarty was acquitted for stealing the crown jewels. The latest round had been fought in the press. Sherlock was being pilloried as a fraud and Moriarty was being portrayed as some actor hired to play the bad guy part. It had been a slow news month and the furor was showing no sign of slowing down just yet. I suspected that whatever had Mycroft in such a state was related in some manner.

"Sherlock committed suicide by jumping off the roof of Saint Bart's Hospital earlier this afternoon."

It hit me like a ton of bricks. First M, now Sherlock. I hadn't realized he was that upset by the publicity. I would have, could have leaked some rather damning information about Moriarty if I had known. Hell, I could have hacked… I looked at Mycroft and suddenly all the pieces fell together.

"You!" I couldn't think of a word vile enough. "You orchestrated the start of this. Moriarty's release, the trial, the acquittal." I was livid. "You were using Sherlock as bait to get the whole enterprise all at once!"

Mycroft at least had the decency to look chagrined. "Yes," he admitted.

"All for the sake of your dratted ambition!"

"Yes, I…"

I cut him off. "You play your games. Organize everyone and everything to fit. Never taking into account the very real people caught up in your grand schemes. At least around here we consider things like collateral damage and try to minimize it."

He took a breath and I cut him off again. "Damn it this was Sherlock, Mycroft, Sherlock whom Mummy specifically charged you to care for and protect!"

The old emotionally overwhelmed feeling was creeping through my anger. I didn't have much time before I would need to find a place to hide. I reached over and cut the privacy mode then stalked to the door. I turned the handle. "I have had enough of your meddling. If I catch you at it after today I swear I will slag everything electronic that touches you." I opened the door and continued "And that goes for meddling with anyone or anything else belonging to MI6!"

I stormed past M and Moneypenny who obviously had heard everything after I'd cut the privacy mode. They knew who Mycroft was. They knew his importance and his influence. They both looked absolutely stunned at my audacity. I didn't pause but kept going at speed all the way back to Q branch. Once there I handed over all oversight to Shirley who had taken over as R last week. I told her that I was taking some time off. She gave me a look but didn't argue. I then went to find a place to hide.

I ended up in the server farm behind a rack snuggled up to one of the main router hubs. I don't know just how long I sat there but eventually I heard a voice. A male voice. Bond.

"Q? I know you are there." A pause. "Eve sent me. She told me what happened." Another pause then he continued, "R gave me a tracking unit. You'll be pleased to know that the experimental locator chip you had implanted works quite well."

I must have made some sound because I heard him sigh. There was movement and I guessed that he was sitting down on the floor. A moment or two later he started talking. He told me humorous anecdotes about missions that had never made it into the reports, the most recent office gossip and then critiqued a good portion of the staff's fashion sense right down to the tailoring of Tanner's suits.

I let Bond's voice wash over me in the same manner that the server exhaust fans were blowing warm air. When I was younger Sherlock had been unusually good at finding me and talking me out of my hidey-holes. I suspected that Bond, with a little additional practice, would be just as good. Eventually the need to hide and pull into myself lessened enough so my thoughts became coherent again.

Bond was beginning to sound hoarse as well as a bit frustrated. Ah, sweet irony. 007, the agent that was able to charm the pants off anyone male or female, on mission or off, was a bit disgruntled at having trouble coaxing one skinny Quartermaster from out from behind a server rack. With that random thought something mentally clicked. I could function with other people now. A half chuckle, half sob escaped me as I stood up and edged carefully out from behind the equipment.

Bond was sitting relaxed with his back against the wall. He had stopped talking when he had heard me start to move. When he saw me he slowly got up watching my reactions closely. I must have looked a bit skittish because he kept his body language relaxed and his voice low.

"There comes a time in this business," he said softly, "when you get to the end of your rope physically or mentally or both. You have a choice then. You can completely and irrevocably go off the deep end or anesthetize yourself until you regain enough equilibrium to cope." He thought for a moment and said reflectively, "It's the reason why most of the field agents drink." He continued, "You right now are beating yourself up with _what if's_ and _should haves_. That's neither productive nor good for you. You need to stop."

I couldn't trust my voice so I just stood there looking at him.

He stared back at me then came to a sudden decision. "Right then," he said half to himself. "I am going to take you and feed you and then we are going to get royally pissed." It sounded like a good idea to me so I didn't object when he took me by the elbow and steered me firmly out of the server room.

********

I came back to consciousness gradually. I was lying on a couch with my head in someone's lap and with what felt like a blanket tightly wrapped around me. I cracked opened my eyes to a blurry vision of a seriously posh living room. Judging by the light coming in the windows it was morning. I felt warm and safe. I was so tired. I didn't want to move. Then my memory kicked in. Mycroft, Sherlock, the server room, Chinese takeaway, far too many glasses of Scotch. I must have twitched because the thigh under my head shifted a bit and a hand came to rest on my shoulder.

"Shh Q," Bond's voice said from somewhere above me, "go back to sleep. You need it. I've got you safe."

For some reason this reassured and comforted me. I closed my eyes again and slept.

When I woke again I was still lying on the couch, my head was on a pillow and I was still swaddled in a blanket. I managed to untangle myself and sit up. I was a bit surprised, given the amount of alcohol I had drunk, that I wasn't hung over. I guess I'd had enough water to go with the alcohol to avoid that particular fate. I looked around for my glasses, found them on the coffee table and put them on. The contents of Bond's flat came into focus.

I pondered the events of last night. Bond had been right. Alcohol had disconnected my self-recrimination feedback loop. That plus the fact that I had spent quite a bit of time telling Bond Sherlock stories had given me a fragile equilibrium. I wondered idly if that was one of the reasons many human societies had developed the concept of the wake. So now what? A mug appeared in my peripheral vision. Tea, Earl Grey by the smell. I grabbed at it greedily.

"I've just confirmed that bit of office gossip," Bond remarked casually as he walked around the sofa and plopped down into a chair with his own mug.

"What gossip?" I asked attempting to take a sip of tea at the same time.

"That it's worth your life to get between the Quartermaster and his tea," he replied.

I shot him a look.

"Better?" he inquired.

"Yes, thanks."

"You are quick on the turn around," he commented.

"Genetic sociopathic tendencies." It was as good an excuse as any. What had really happened was that I had at some time last night decided what I needed and wanted to do about the whole affair. It wasn't going to be pretty and I might lose my job but one way or another Sherlock would be avenged.

"By the by," he took a sip of what I could now smell was coffee, "M has barred Mr. Holmes from the MI6 offices. Moneypenny has offered to shoot him if he trespasses without your leave."

"While I appreciate the sentiment how in heavens name did he manage to justify that?"

"Something about protecting the stability of Her Majesty's vital assets I believe," Bond's tone was dry but he had a slight smile on his face.

"For that matter, why did you haul me here and ply me with alcohol rather than dumping me on medical or the psyc boys and then sit around on your ass most of the day waiting for me to wake up?" I very carefully didn't mention that I'd woken up the first time with my head in his lap. I still didn't know quite what to make of the fact that one of the deadliest MI6 agents ever, James bloody Bond, had let me sleep on him.

"I was protecting the stability of Her Majesty's vital assets," he deadpanned.

********

I made it into work the next day. As usual the office rumor mill had been active and most everyone was treating me like I was made of glass. I guess suicide in the family even if they didn't know the particulars was grounds for overly solicitous behavior. They meant well. Actually I much preferred the behavior of the impromptu conspiracy between Moneypenny, the 00's led by Bond and the rest of Q branch. Collectively they had decided that if I wanted to work then they'd let me work but that they were going to make sure that I ate regularly and got what they perceived as a decent amount of sleep.

I had started on my revenge project immediately. I delegated anything that didn't really need my personal input and put off anything that was not pressing. Of course Mycroft had snagged and segregated all the CCTV footage of the incident. It took me two days to deduce its location then hack the appropriate system and retrieve it. I left all his copies in a corrupted mess. He'd get the message.

It took me another day to enhance the files enough so I could attempt to reconstruct the conversation that had occurred on the rooftop. It was slow going. Reading lips is not something I do often or well. Surprisingly Bond was a help there. He caught me laboriously working on it and proceeded to finish up the transcript in less than an hour. He didn't make any comment about the morbidity of my task. I suspect that he'd guessed that I was looking for reasons. By the time we got done with the transcript I had them.

As Bond was reading it over for typo's he looked up at me suddenly and said, "Do you happen to have another camera angle, one just before the phone call?"

I looked through the files. "Yes, but it's a real long shot. I couldn't enhance it enough to be able to get anything much."

"Let me see it."

Bond watched the long view carefully through to the end. I couldn't tell what exactly he was looking at. But then, Bond was a 00. His life often hung on his ability to read the minutia of body language in precarious situations. It was highly possible that he was seeing something that I had completely missed. His next question confirmed it.

"How good is the security around your brother Mycroft?" he asked.

Oh ho. Bond had managed to figure out the family relationship. I wondered how he'd done it. M and Moneypenny knew of course. I knew it wasn't in the electronic records. I hadn't mentioned him by name even while drunk. He must have just put the timing of Mycroft's visit, my reactions and the Sherlock tales together. Well, he was a spy after all.

"As good if not better than M's and his PA was one of us before she joined the dark side."

"How good was she?"

"Just shy of 00 status if I remember the file correctly."

He looked at me, handed me the transcript and left Q branch without another word. I wondered what the hell that had been all about but I needed to switch gears and do some prep work on some specialized equipment for 004 who was going out early next week.

********

I found out what Bond had been worried about three hours later when Moneypenny hand delivered a memo reminding everyone that security protocols for branch head required the use of MI6 cars and drivers for transport to and from work. Since I was the only branch head that wasn't doing so already this memo was clearly aimed directly at me.

"So Bond thinks I'm a target," I gave her my best glare.

She stared back her face a study in innocence. "It is long standing protocol," she replied.

I gave up and resigned myself to using a driver for at least a week.

Over the next three days I ended up going over all the camera angles again looking for whatever had set Bond off. I didn't find it but I did find some rather interesting holes in the coverage all involving a delivery truck and some overly scruffy workers. A suspicion had begun to take hold in my brain but I'd need to confirm it.

I was pulling outlying CCTV footage of the truck both before and after the event when Moneypenny and Bond walked in followed by Tanner.

Tanner started, "You are staying in a safe house or here tonight. 007 missed a sniper by about 5 minutes. He was setting up to take a shot at you in your flat."

What?! I was a little taken aback. Was this MI6 related or was it more personal?

"It's a professional. There was information on your cover identity," Bond stated flatly.

"Someone took out a hit on your cover," Monneypenny chimed in.

"So I'm to break normal, well what passes for normal in my case, patterns until the sniper is caught? Don't you think if I don't show up at home at all for a week that it might tip him off that he's been spotted?"

"M thinks it would be safer than staying in your flat," said Moneypenny.

Hmph. Safer? I didn't think so. I had quite a bit of R&D security measures installed in my flat that I hadn't bothered to inform M about. I didn't bother to directly reply to Moneypenny's comment. It was time for a demonstration.

I calmly walked over to a cabinet and fished out one of the new polymer adhesive sheets that we were developing. I peeled off the backing and slapped it on the glass wall of the communications room. On the way back I snagged a 22 caliber bullet off a box on one of the firearms development desk. Good, it was a standard round. I then strolled over to the memorial trunk. It was a matter of moments to find what I was looking for. It was a simple handgun the representation of an R&D designer who had been instrumental in the development of some of our more unique ammunition. Since the ammunition itself would get unstable as it aged, the test gun had been the item placed in the trunk. As with all items in the trunk, we kept it in good working condition.

I quickly loaded the revolver, took aim and fired at the sheet on the window. The bullet imbedded itself in the polymer, the glass window behind it cracked in a spider web pattern but it did not break. R, who was running an op in communications, gave me a dirty look and went on with talking an agent through a tricky bit of mission. The rest of my staff just stared at me with varying degrees of shock and awe.

I looked at Tanner, Bond and Moneypenny. Tanner kept a straight face. Monneypenny looked surprised. Bond had a speculative look. "I have the thicker version on my flat windows," was all I said.

My demonstration and subsequent explanation of my flat's defenses forestalled any further discussion of relocation however I did end up with a surveillance detail. Watchers watching for watchers. That concession on my part made things a little difficult when I managed to solve the puzzle of the truck a day or so later. Oh Sherlock. Pulling the wool over everyone's eyes, mine and Mycroft included. He must have had an inside accomplice. Probably that girl, Molly wasn't it, at St. Bart's.

Opening communication with him was going to have to be seriously old school. Given the fact that he was attempting to protect his people as well as avoid notice Sherlock would be running with a high level of paranoia and leaving a minimal electronic footprint. A note with a phone number on it in a dead drop that I knew he'd check occasionally would be the only way. It was going to be impossible to place the note myself given how closely I was being guarded. Well there was no help for it. I'd need to take Bond into my confidence.

I was surprised at how easy it was to convince Bond. I suspected it was his way of returning the breadcrumb favor. He, on the other hand, said it was good to have a realistic training exercise from time to time. I had replied that if he really wanted a challenge he should try and get back into MI6 without triggering any of my new security measures. I should know better than to give any of the 00's, especially him, a challenge like that. I was subsequently informed by M that the cost of repairs to the security system was going to come out of my department's discretionary fund.

********

It took another week from the time Bond placed the note but the disposable mobile I'd purchased for just this purposed finally buzzed. I looked at the text. The message read:

_011235813._

I smiled and texted back.

_21345589._

Almost immediately I received.

_Gross_.

It was an old joke of ours from school. Something inside of me unknotted now that I knew for sure, rather than just suspecting, he wasn't dead.

_Do you need assistance?_

This reply took a little longer.

_Potentially. I'll be in touch._

I smiled again. Typical Sherlock, not willing to admit he needed help. From experience I knew that I'd just have to wait. That was fine. Espionage was in many ways a waiting game and I had plenty of other things to do while I waited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title derived from Tempest, Act V, Scene 1. The initial text is the start of a Fibonacci sequence specifically: 0/1/1/2/3/5/8/13. Q's reply is then next 4 numbers 21/34/55/89. 144 is the next number in the sequence. A gross is 144 items.


	8. The Adventure of the Vacant Building

I have never been one for anniversaries pleasant or otherwise but there was something about this day that I found I needed to mark even if it was depressing. It was the one year anniversary of Sherlock's suicide. I had moved out of Baker Street almost immediately after his death. I just couldn't stand the familiar look of the flat without him in it. I also could not bring myself to move his things up or even tidy a bit. So it just sat there as a gaping reminder of a brilliant man come to an untimely end. I know Mrs. Hudson had eventually boxed most of it up. She told me she had when we went together to visit his grave about a month aftward.

That first time visiting his grave had been gut-wrenching. My therapist, Ella, had suggested that I go and say all the things I hadn't said while he was alive. It would give me closure she said. I didn't think it would help but I promised that I'd give it a try. It was a cold rainy day and my limp was back with a vengeance. I stood there after Mrs. Hudson left and all I could think about was how I couldn't believe that the whole deduction thing was a lie. That Sherlock was a lie. I kept hoping against all hope that he wasn't really dead. That this was all a ruse of some sort. I may have even said some of it aloud. It hadn't helped.

But something else that happened that day which ended up making the next 11 months more bearable. Since I had sent Mrs. Hudson home in a cab, I decided to walk to my new bedsit in Kensington gimpy psychosomatic leg and all. I wasn't terribly far away from the cemetery when I saw James Bond walking purposefully in my direction. We greeted each other and he offered to buy me a drink in a tone that I knew wouldn't take no for an answer. We wound up in a dark little pub on a side street talking inane pleasantries and carefully avoiding the elephant in the room that was Sherlock's death. I remember very vividly the moment when Bond nailed me to my seat with those bright blue eyes of his and said "I came looking for you intentionally you know."

Of course I had to ask why and he had explained that Q had nicked the CCTV feeds and thought I needed to watch them. My immediate reaction was no thanks, been there done that in person already. Bond had insisted and handed me a micro-thumb drive. He told me that the files were encrypted and the key was Q's name. Bond had kept talking and eventually I promised to look at what Q had sent.

When I finally made it back to the bedsit I plugged the thumb drive into my computer and decrypted it. There was a file with a note from Quentin telling me which file was which. Quentin had not only snagged the feeds from several different cameras but he'd also enhanced them enough so that the conversation on the roof between Moriarty and Sherlock could be lip read. He had also thoughtfully provided a transcript just in case watching the footage was too much to start with. I read the transcript then watched the video feed. While it didn't alleviate the hurt it made it easier to cope knowing that Sherlock had given his life to save those he cared for. From that day on I'd worn the micro-thumb drive on a chain around my neck. It was a bit of sentiment that I knew would have driven Sherlock crazy but it helped somewhat.

So here I was standing at his grave one year after the fact and wondering _what now_. I was working again. According to Ella I was making good headway through the grieving process. I wasn't telling her everything though. I was putting up a good facade of normalcy but that was all it was, a facade. Things just seemed so pointless without him.

"John," Lestrade's voice came from behind me and I turned. "I thought I'd find you here."

Lestrade had visibly aged over the last year. His hair was greyer and the lines on his face were more pronounced. It had not been easy but he'd weathered the fallout from being associated with Sherlock and was still with NSY. He'd also started up a new romance after his divorce was final. Shirley was her name. I'd met her a few times. She worked in the IT department of a huge multinational shipping corporation called Universal Exports. Being in IT of a global corporation meant she worked strange hours and was on call a lot. Surprisingly it didn't seem to put a strain on the relationship probably because they both were in the same boat so to speak regarding job demands. It seemed Lestrade, at least, was moving on with his life.

"Greg."

"I hate to bug you today of all days," he said "but something's come up and I'd like to bounce some ideas off you."

Over the last six months Lestrade had looked me up several times when a case of his completely stalled out. We'd discuss, toss around ideas and attempt in our own way to use Sherlock's methods to see if we could come up with something. It sometimes worked, other times not but it seemed to make Lestrade at least feel like he'd turned over the last stone before officially labeling something a cold case. It was after one of these sessions some two months ago that I'd finally shared Quentin's information with him. His reaction had been interesting, less surprise and more relief that something he'd long suspected had been confirmed.

"Shall we find a pub?" I asked.

"Yeh…have to eat sometime." was his reply.

We ended up in the same dark little pub where James had given me the thumb drive. "So what's this all about then?"

"Have you been following the Adair murder investigation in the press?"

I had. One Ronald Adair, accountant, had been shot dead through his second floor office window four, well actually five days ago now, at roughly 3 am. His office had been in an old converted bank building where all the windows were bullet resistant. He'd been shot with a small caliber round that should not have had enough power to breach the window from a long distance and the bullet trajectory was such that the shooter would have needed to stand in the middle of a freshly turned flowerbed in the middle of a public park. It was also interesting that the killer had taken two shots in close succession, one of which had hit Mr. Adair and the other which hit the laptop upon which he'd been working. The press was having a field day with all sorts of conspiracy theories.

"It's bizarre," Lestrade continued. "Forensics can't make head nor tails out of the bullets. They appear to be some sort of strange metal alloy. Completely nonstandard. We also can't tell what Adair was working on because one of the two shots slagged the computer. We don't know why he was using a laptop as opposed to his office computer. Nothing in the man's history, work or otherwise that indicates that someone would want to kill him. The man was an accountant for Christ's sake. We are down to checking his phone records and credit card purchases in an attempt to reconstruct his movements over the last few days of his life and hope that gives us something to go on."

I let Lestrade blather on. Finally, he ran down so I could get a word in edgewise and ask some questions. We talked a great deal over lunch and figured out a few additional leads for investigation but didn't make a breakthrough. On the way home I realized that something in his tale was jogging my memory but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was. Since the crime scene was only slightly out of my way I decided to have a quick look.

Even though it had been over four days the conspiracy theories in the tabloids meant that there were quite a few folks who were sightseeing at the crime scene. There were even a couple of impromptu discussions about the crime going on among the bystanders. I looked at the flower bed, up at the window and then around at the surrounding buildings. If it hadn't been for the bullet resistant glass I'd have said the ideal place for the shooter would have been the roof of the one story building on the other side of the park. I walked over to take a look. When I got there I attempted to determine where on the roof someone would need to be to match the trajectory Lestrade had described. I was concentrating so hard that I ran smack dab into a gentleman who was hurrying along the sidewalk with a laptop bag and several old leather bound books in his arms. He was an older fellow with the slightly off gait and hunched back of someone with severe arthritis. Given his thinness I was surprised that I hadn't knocked him over but I only caused him to drop his books. He was quite upset and cursed me roundly for being "an addlepated idiot who didn't look where I put my clodhoppers" in a thick Scottish brogue. I apologized profusely and helped retrieve the books. Despite the assistance he stomped off in a huff.

The collision with the old gentleman completely derailed my train of thought so I ended up just going back toward my flat. I was just putting my key in the lock to the front door when I was accosted by the very same old gentleman I had run into earlier.

In a croaking voice he said "You are surprised to see me."

"Yes," I said shortly. I had no idea what the fellow wanted, my leg was hurting and I really wanted to sit down and have a cup of tea.

"Well" he sounded a bit sheepish, "I was a little rude back there and as I happened to see you I thought I'd tell you that I was much obliged that you helped pick up my books."

Despite myself I was curious, "Did you follow me?"

"Oh no, it was mere happenstance," he said. "I work just up the street there at the antique emporium."

"Well, I'm sure I'll see you around then," I said turning back to the door. I pushed it open and walked into the small entry hall of the flats expecting the door to shut behind me. It didn't. I turned back to look to see what the problem was and saw Sherlock Holmes dressed as the old antiques shopkeeper standing in the doorway.

I punched him.

He reeled back from the punch, ricocheted into the wall and ended up on his arse as the door swung shut. He looked up at me and said mildly "I suppose I deserved that."

I didn't know whether I wanted to embrace him or punch him again so I just extended my hand to help him up.

"70%" he muttered to himself as he grabbed my hand and got up off the floor.

"70% what?" I asked. Oh great. It hadn't been more than 60 seconds and we were falling back into the old rhythms. God I'd missed it.

"Quentin estimated that there was a 70% chance you'd slug me, a 25% chance you'd hug me and a 5% chance you'd faint," He replied.

I hadn't let go of his hand so it was easy to pull him into a rough embrace. I really needed to reassure myself that he wasn't just a figment of my imagination. He was skinnier than before, all whipcord muscles without an ounce of extra fat, and reassuringly solid. I hadn't gone completely off the deep end then. I released him to arm's length just to look at him for a moment then grabbed him in a bear hug again. I was rather surprised when instead of just standing there not knowing how to deal with my blatant display of sentiment he hugged me back.

"I'm sorry John," he started. "I didn't mean to upset you with my overly dramatic reappearance."

I realized then that I was crying. "Bastard," I mumbled as he stood there holding onto me. I felt him sigh.

"We need to talk," he said softly as he maneuvered me into my flat.

********

Later that evening as Sherlock lead me down another tiny alleyway, I was still having a hard time getting my mind around the tale that he had told me.

Of course he had suspected that Moriarty would attempt some sort of grand gesture on the roof of St. Bart's that day. He'd anticipated the blackmail into suicide play but had been a nonplussed when Moriarty had taken his own life. He'd actually expected the criminal genius to attempt to fake his death rather than blow his brains out on the roof. Regardless, Sherlock had set things up so that he'd jumped into a lorry with a hole in its top and an air cushion in the bed to break the fall. His co-conspirators had rolled the look-alike body, provided by Molly, onto the sidewalk and driven away no one the wiser.

Quentin had somehow figured out what Sherlock had done. He'd managed to contact Sherlock and they'd been working together on and off to take down the remaining part of Moriarty's network. Some of the cooperation had even been officially sanctioned. According to Sherlock it hadn't been too hard to get MI6 involved officially on occasion since some of the network members were moderately high up on the list of persons of interest. In short, Sherlock had spent the last year hopscotching all over including Tibet, Iran, Sudan and France. I wasn't quite sure how he'd managed to do it but I suspected Quentin had a hand in it one way or another.

We'd been making our way through the back alleys, over fences, up on roofs and occasionally through back gardens for the last hour or so. I was completely lost but Sherlock seemed to know exactly where we were going. He'd mentioned in passing when he asked me if I was still up for a bit of work that we'd be avoiding CCTV cameras as much as possible.

Judging from Sherlock's behavior I could tell we were nearing our destination when we squeezed between the alley wall and a temporary construction fence. The vacant building was in the process of being gutted and renovated. It was most likely being turned into into upscale flats over business space judging by the boarded up display sized windows on the ground floor. Sherlock lead me over to a door with an obvious lock and proceeded to pick it with ease. We entered the building and carefully made our way up to the first floor.

The windows on the first floor were intact and the renovators were in the process of rebuilding the interior walls. Some walls were mere framing while others had electrical and still others were partially covered with drywall. That gave the whole interior a rather maze like appearance. Still moving quietly we made our way over to the windows. I was surprised at the view. We were looking out on Baker Street. The vacant building we were in was almost directly across from 221.

When I looked at the windows of our old flat I could see the lights were on and shadow of occasional movement. I had expected Mrs. Hudson to rent out the flat so I was completely surprised when I saw what was clearly Sherlock in the window for a moment. I reached out to grab him, just to reassure myself that he was still by my side, and found him shaking with suppressed laughter.

"Good isn't it?" He whispered in my ear. "Quentin has all sorts of electronic toys. Some of them are even useful." He paused then added "Now we wait."

We settled down in an area covered by several almost completed walls but still with a good view of the windows that looked out onto Baker Street. Stakeouts are awfully like sentry duty. You are in a constant struggle to stay ready for action without getting oneself too tired to actually be able to act. Despite having been out of practice I found myself settling into the proper mindset easily.

Sherlock, on the other hand, was wired. Usually on a stakeout he would retreat into almost a trance. Thinking deeply but completely aware of his surroundings. Not tonight. Tonight he was jittery, barely holding himself in check. If I hadn't had a good look at him earlier I would have suspected that he was under the influence of some sort of illicit stimulant. No, this was pure excitement. I just hoped that whatever it was we were waiting for would happen before Sherlock ran out of nervous energy.

Half an hour later I got my wish. Sherlock cocked his head. I listened too. I could hear the faint sounds of someone moving in the far stairwell. They were careful and quiet and if I hadn't been listening for it I might have assumed the sound was simply the building settling as it cooled in the night. The sounds continued up to the second floor. I prepared to move but Sherlock shook his head. I understood. He did not want to chance even a whisper.

A few minutes later he moved over to look out the window motioning me to stay in place. He watched for a bit then motioned me toward the stairwell we had come up. Together we slowly and silently made our way up. We halted so we could just peer into the second floor. This floor was mostly open space. The renovators had finished removing the non-load bearing walls but hadn't yet started in on their replacements. I could tell from the street noise that there were several windows either missing or open. Framed by the light of one of the open windows I could see a man sitting on a box with a case open on the floor beside him. As I watched he assembled what looked like a modified sniper rifle, loaded it, and set up using the window sill as his rest. Then he stilled and sat almost motionless, waiting for his shot. There was very little sound when he took it. Just a muffled whump.

Sherlock's hand was on my arm. I could tell he was waiting for the sniper to put the rifle away before moving to apprehend the man. The sniper was disassembling his rig as quickly as he had assembled it. He had just placed the long barrel in the case when a figure swung through the open window, feet first, missing the sniper's head by inches.

The resulting fight was brutal. The sniper and his adversary were both well trained and in excellent physical condition. They both fought with their entire bodies. Fists, knees, elbows all were in use. Suddenly the combatants separated and I could see that the sniper had pulled a knife. The two men circled each other momentarily then just as suddenly were back into close quarters fighting. I could feel Sherlock tense beside me. He was gaging the fight. Looking for the best way to intervene. I had my Sig out intending to take a shot at the sniper if I had a clear line of fire.

Something went crash at street level and there was the sound of feet pounding up the stairs. The combatants continued undistracted. They were grappling now. One man managed to knock the feet out from the other and they both went down with loud thud. I saw the knife flash in the dim light, heard a pained grunt as it connected then the rather distinctive crack of breaking bones.

The pounding feet had made it to the top of the far stairwell and I heard Lestrade's voice shout "Stop, Police."

One of the combatants, the one who had swung in the window, made it to one knee breathing heavily. The other lay still on the ground. The kneeling man froze at Lestrade's shout. He looked up in Lestrade's direction and it looked like he muttered something under his breath. He turned his head slightly then as if listening and I could see his face caught in the light from the window. James!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title derived from The Adventure of the Empty House by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. List of places Sherlock visited is also lifted from that story using the modern place names. I realize that in the original stories Sherlock is "dead" for 3 years. Given the increase in speed of international travel I shortened the interval to 1 year.


	9. The End is the Renown

"In position," Bond's voice was quiet over the communications link.

"Roger 007," said R "We'll let you know if we spot the objective."

"Where's Q?" 007 asked after a short pause. He'd obviously been expecting my voice in his ear as it had been for the past two consecutive nights.

I spoke up from where I'd been observing in the doorway to the communications room, "Attempting to drink my tea 007."

"You should get Medical to hook you up with an I-V drip when you are running mission ops. That way the cup wouldn't get in the way of your giving me advice and directions that I'll mostly ignore anyway." Bond's voice was teasing.

"But then I'd have to fire the new interns whom you seem to enjoy harassing. They do such a good job with tea."

"Attempted harassing, they seem to be immune to my charms."

R sniggered and chimed in, "Medical has come up with a vaccination that we are testing. It gives immunity to 00's."

"Ah, so that's the problem," said Bond. "I'll just have to put in a bit more effort then."

And so it goes. The bane of all espionage operations. Hurry up and wait for the other side to make a move. A little bit of banter goes a long way in situations like these. I let R and 007 go at it for a while. She still needed the practice, especially with the 00's. After all she was less than a year in the position and only three months or so of directly running the high value ops. Being a voice in an agent's ear was relatively easy. Being a trusted, welcomed voice was another thing all together. It rarely clicked immediately and the verbal sparring helped. I tuned back into the conversation just in time to hear R rib Bond about the average bra cup size of his on mission conquests and his counter about her penchant for older men. Neither seemed to be offended.

"Children, back to work now!" That was a bit ironic since I'm physically younger than both of them.

They chorused "Yes sir!" in sing-song voices. I formally took over communications and we settled down to watch and wait.

We were after big game tonight, one Sebastian Moran. Ex-army sniper turned arms supplier to the rich and infamous warlords of Africa and the sole remaining member of Moriarty's inner circle. He'd been on MI6's radar for a while but had recently been elevated in threat level due to his close association with one particular African warlord. His removal would make a good portion of central Africa a lot less of a hazard to work in. 007 had pulled the assignment but Moran suddenly had started moving just as he was getting close. 007 had chased him from Khartoum to Johannesburg and then through a variety of European countries to England. We hadn't had a clue why he was taking the risk of leaving the continent until Sherlock contacted me.

Sherlock and I had ditched the cell phone connection rather early on. Instead we had been communicating via a private FTP drop site run by a very select hacking society. Everything we sent was encrypted with the base used to generate the algorithm changing with every message. Sherlock indicated that Moran was having trouble with a front company in England that he used to launder money. He also hinted that someone in Moran's operation in the Sudan might have recognized him and reported his _still living_ status up the chain of command. Sherlock wanted me to keep an eye on Watson, Mr. Hudson and Lestrade and let him know if Moran was stalking them as opposed to just attempting to deal with his money problem.

A little strategic digging and a modicum of hacking and I had traced Mr. Moran's dilemma. His front company had run into a technically competent and completely ethical accountant. Ronald Adair had been hired to audit Moran's import/export business. Somehow he'd managed to find the shadow books on the company servers and had made major inroads into unraveling the entire system. He'd been meticulous and careful. He only accessed the private files on the server from a laptop via public internet connections. Unfortunately, while he was competent he wasn't a hacker and he'd left traces of what he'd done all over the system. It had taken them several weeks but they managed to figure out who had accessed the files and where he was. Adair had been killed a week ago before we had authority to take him into MI6 protective custody. Some days I think that delays in the bloody bureaucracy kills more people than the 00's do.

What was really annoying was that while I knew Moran had killed Adair I hadn't been able to catch him doing so. I'd tagged him upon entry to England but Moran was a slippery character and well connected with the local low-lifes. He was quite adept at staying off both the electronic radar and the CCTV cameras. The bastard had used the one spot on the entire block that didn't have adequate camera coverage. I suspected it was intentional.

After Adair's murder we assumed that Moran would stick around London a day or two to make sure his pet company was safe before disappearing back into the wilds of Africa. I figured the only way we'd catch him was to give him something else to shoot at. Someone he wanted very badly to ensure was dead. Sherlock. M was not too keen on the idea of involving a civilian but agreed to give it a try as long as Sherlock agreed.

Sherlock had followed Moran to London. Moran was the last major threat from Moriarty's network and Sherlock was planning to try and take him down anyway. I set up a meet with Sherlock in person. Things were too complex to do over the phone, FTP or dead drop. Once I outlined my idea Sherlock agreed to come in from the cold and resurrect himself. Of course he did it in typical Sherlock fashion and just showed up at Mrs. Hudson's door immediately after we met. Luckily the closest member of the surveillance detail happened to know how to deal with acute hysterics.

We'd spent the next day in 221B installing a very clever set of projectors to give the appearance that Sherlock was home and give Moran something to target. Sherlock then proceeded to get into contact with some of his not quite so above board connections in the London underworld. I calculated that it would take less than 24 hours for word to get to Moran. I was surprised that he didn't touch base with either Lestrade or Watson at the same time. I think he was still attempting to protect them as much as possible. I didn't confront him directly about it, merely gave some off the cuff odds on reactions and got snarled at for my pains.

I, unbeknownst to Sherlock, also had a set of special cameras installed in the neighborhood. By the time we were done I had visual and infrared coverage of not only Baker Street but also the alleys and side streets. 007 had taken a look at the logistics and opined that the optimum place to take the shot would be the building currently being renovated across the street from 221. I didn't want to chance either the workers or Moran spotting any cameras mounted inside the building. This was why Bond had spent the last two nights on the roof waiting for Moran to make a move.

It was about 23:00 GMT when I caught some movement on one of the alley cameras behind the vacant building. One figure, no two. Bloody hell, I knew that movement and that coat. "Damn it Sherlock you promised to stay out of it!"

R looked at me questioningly and 007 chuckled under his breath over the comm. Crap. I'd said that out loud, on live feed even. Hell, I'd even used Sherlock's name. I'd have to edit it out of the mission record. Bond wasn't a problem, he already knew of the relationship, but R might be. I'd have to debrief with her afterword regarding keeping that tidbit of information quiet.

"Holmes and Watson just entered the building. They are coming up the far stairwell." If Watson was with Sherlock then odds were good that he'd tipped off Lestrade as well. I nipped into the NSY servers and looked at the duty rosters and orders then swore under my breath. "You may also have the locals to deal with if anything goes down tonight 007."

007 tapped on his earpiece twice creating a clicking noise to acknowledge. Now that there were others in the building he didn't want to take the slightest chance of being overheard.

I took another look at the cameras and the infrared monitors I had pointed at the vacant building. "Holmes and Watson are setting up on the first floor," I relayed. I wondered why there. Maybe this was Sherlock's concession to his promise to stay out of it. I checked the outlying cameras. Lestrade's NSY group were not visible on the street. They didn't have radios on so I couldn't locate them from that. Where the heck had they stashed themselves?

"R your boyfriend is leading the charge for the locals. Ping his mobile. I want to know where he is."

"In progress," she said typing into one of the computers.

R's ping off Lestrade's mobile went through quickly. Ah ha! There they were. Inside the lobby of a block of flats just down the street. I relayed the location to Bond. We settled down again to wait some more.

We didn't have to wait long, a little more than half an hour. A large man carrying what looked like a guitar case ambled down the street then slipped into the alley behind the vacant building. I got a good side shot with one of the cameras. It was Moran.

"Objective entering the building. South stairwell." I continued to watch with the specialized cameras. "Stairwell, 1st floor landing, 2nd floor, over to the windows. He's casing for the best angle.

A double click indicated Bond had heard and understood.

"He's going to set up in the 4th window from the corner. Holmes and Watson are moving up the far stairwell."

Double click.

I watched as Moran set up and 007 carefully maneuvered so that he'd be able to flip off the top of the building and directly into the window Moran was using as a rifle rest. Like all good snipers Moran took his time setting up the shot.

"He's ready. Holmes & Watson are holding just below the landing in the stairwell."

Another double click was Bond's reply

I didn't hear the shot through Bond's earpiece. Silenced rifle. Clever. The cameras caught the muzzle flash and I heard the crash of glass from the equipment in 221B. R made sure the secondary projection loop had been activated by the breach in the integrity of the window. It worked seamlessly. She gave me a thumbs up.

A couple of heartbeats later Bond swung off the roof and in through the window. He missed Moran's head by inches. Through his radio I could hear the fight. At the same time the NSY group was moving on the building. Sound of punches, kicks, Bond's breathing. The fight was vicious. Moran was well trained and physically a match for 007. Suddenly a grunt and a sharp intake of breath. I could tell Bond had been slightly hurt by the cadence of his breathing. The NSY group had hit the bottom of the stairs. Bond and Moran were still at it. A thump. They were on the floor. Another grunt, major pain this time from Bond then the distinctive crack of a bones breaking. Moran was still, neck broken. Bond rolled up to one knee. It was over.

"007 report!"

"Stop! Police!" the shout came in clearly over the com link.

"Objective eliminated."

"What's your damage?" I asked.

"Put your arms out slowly and lay down on the floor" came a second shout. I identified the voice as Lestrade's.

"Actually I'd rather not," said Bond in a conversational tone. He was clearly addressing the NSY group but answering my question as well at the same time. "I happen to have a rather large knife stuck through my left forearm."

Of course that was exactly the moment Sherlock stuck his nose into the entire business by standing up in the stairwell and hailing Lestrade. One day he was going to get shot by accident when he did that.

"Locate Tanner and have him vouch for Bond with NSY," I instructed R. "I don't want 007 detained especially if he's injured."

R scoffed, "Like you are going to get him to go to medical even if he is banged up and needs to." Another trait shared by most of the 00's. Medical was a four letter word to them and a place to be avoided at all costs.

"I'll pull rank and threaten to not give him any toys to play with. That will at least make him check in and get stitched up properly."

My personal mobile went off then. Only a select few have that particular number, all of them important. Good thing I can multitask. I glanced at it.

The text read: _Why? MH._

Oh blast! I did NOT need this right now. Mycroft had known Sherlock was alive for the last six months. He'd somehow managed to get a hold of my work with the CCTV cameras. I didn't know if he had an informant in MI6 or if he'd picked it off the thumb drive I'd had Bond give Dr. Watson. I suspected the latter rather than the former. The former would have required hacking into my personal section of the MI6 servers not an easy task even from the inside. There were only a few people in the world who could do that from either the inside or the outside without leaving traces and I knew most of them. None of them would have been able to resist bragging about a feat like that and I'd heard nothing. I didn't know if Mycroft had contacted Sherlock directly but he did text me after he had acquired the information so we were talking again. Sort of.

 _Need to know. Q._ I texted back.

R gave me another strange look as she registered that I was texting. Sherlock was pontificating about how and why Moran had killed Adair. Dr. Watson had co-opted the nearest first aid kit and from the sound of it was treating Bond. I was amazed that none of the NSY people seemed to object or even question what he was doing. I made a hand motion indicating that R should continue to monitor as she linked Tanner to NSY.

_Bugger operational security. I have clearance. MH._

_You have clearance if I decide you have clearance. Q._

This was an MI6 operation and I wanted Mycroft to be clear that I was not going to tolerate his officious meddling.

_More threats? MH._

_No threat. Promise. Q._

_Have S come see me when this is done. MH._ Followed immediately thereafter by: _You too. MH._

That surprised me. Mycroft admitting, abet backhandedly, to sentiment. That alone was worth my trying to get all of us in the same room at the same time to see what he'd do. Hell, he might even apologize. No, the more that I thought about it Mycroft wouldn't do so outright but watching him attempt to do it would be amusing.

_Will try. Q._

I focused back on the task at hand just in time to hear Watson say to Bond, "There, that should hold it for a bit. Best I can do with the supplies I have and it should allow you to decline treatment from the ambulance." I faintly heard the wail of sirens under his voice as well as Sherlock and Lestrade having an argument. They were using low enough voices so I couldn't make out the subject matter.

Bond grunted, presumably in thanks, but otherwise didn't speak.

"I know you have a medical division," Watson continued softly. "You'll need to get that properly looked at as soon as Sherlock and I can get you get sprung from here." Hmmm. Sherlock was trying to get Lestrade to let Bond go? That was interesting. Meanwhile Watson continued, "Don't give me that look. I mean it. Get it seen to James." A mobile went off somewhere in the background. I glanced at my communication monitoring screen. It was Lestrade's. Tanner had managed to convince NSY brass in record time.

"That sounds suspiciously like an order 007," I chimed in. "Treat it as such." I rarely pull rank on field agents but there was something in Dr. Watson's tone that made me think Bond's injury was more serious than 007 was letting on. "If you don't the next time you go out you are getting toothpicks and a water pistol to work with," I threatened.

"As long as the toothpicks are explosive and the water pistol is full of acid," was Bond's low voiced response.

Watson chuckled softly in the background. He had clearly figured out my side of the conversation from Bond's grumbling.

I couldn't hear Sherlock and Lestrade arguing anymore. The ambulance had pulled up to the front of the building and the siren cut off. Footsteps and Lestrade's voice ordering the two people guarding Bond to go and help the others with the forensic details.

"You are free to go," Lestrade growled at Bond. "Apparently dealing with you is way above my pay grade." The poor guy sounded frustrated. I made a mental note to myself to make sure to bully 007 into writing an incident report that could be shared without a hideous amount of redaction. "John," he continued, "Could you get Sherlock out of here before Anderson takes it into his head to strangle him?"

"Anderson doesn't have the strength to strangle me," Sherlock commented gleefully. "He shouldn't want to either considering you lot are going to get all the credit for solving the Adair murder once you get the ballistics on that rifle. I'm not going to make a statement about it and I suspect that the Commander wasn't even here."

"Correct as always Mr. Holmes," said Bond. I could see in the infrared camera that he had stood up with the intent of walking away. He turned toward the stairwell which was currently unclogged with police and medical personnel.

I could hear the smirk in Sherlock's voice as Bond moved off, "Convey my regards to Q."

Yes Sherlock, I know you are smart. He'd probably spotted Bond's earpiece and concluded that I was on the other end. Sherlock was never one to pass up an opportunity to attempt to yank my chain. It was one of the few ways he showed affection.

As Bond walked away I heard Lestrade ask Watson somewhat rhetorically "Do you know what that was about? Do I want to know what that was about?"

I could barely hear John Watsons reply of "No probably not."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title derived from All's Well that End's Well, Act IV, Scene 4.
> 
> Gentle Readers:  
> This is the last full sized chapter. Only the Epilogue to go. Just FYI, I have started working on a sequel. It's darker than this one especially for Q. Please let me know what you liked, disliked, or would have liked to hear more of. Review or lob me a PM if you are shy.


	10. Epilogue

It's been a long time, generations in fact, since I've been privileged to have one such genius within my purview, no less three at the same time. There they stand together at the foot of the grave of the great lady they all called mummy. It has been a little over a year and a half since her death. The stocky politician, the lanky detective and the tousle haired spy each remembering her in his own way. Their companions stand a ways off giving the brothers some privacy. The politician has his assistant, the detective his doctor and the spy his assassin. Each companion keeps their respective genius safe and stable so they can perform their tasks for Queen and Country.

I wish I could approach them. Talk to them. That is not to be. These three are so brilliant that a mere introduction in passing would reveal more than is prudent. I shouldn't even be this close least one or another of them notice me and from that notice deduce my very nature. Ah well, I will continue to watch over and assist them as well as I am able from afar as they continue singly and collectively to protect me and mine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason the POV of this epilogue ended up being England from Axis Powers Hitalia. I hope you have enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed writing it. As noted previously this is cross posted at Fanfiction.net. Finally, I will plagiarize the words of the immortal Puck (with apologies to Master William Shakespeare for my rewrite of a portion of Midsummer Night's Dream, Act V, Scene 2):
> 
> If this writer has offended,  
> Think but this and all is mended.  
> That you have but tarried here,  
> While each chapter did appear,  
> And these words upon this theme,  
> Are of no import, only my dream.
> 
> It has been an honor to share my dream with you.  
> K2N2


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